THE 'EBED YAHWEH SONGS AND THE SUFFERING MESSIAH IN " DEUTERO-ISAIAH 'V

BY IVAN ENGNELL,PROFESSOR OF OLD TESTAMENT EXEGESIS, UPSALA.

I

THE " Suffering Servant" problem always attracts the Old Testament scholar in a singular way, owing to a large

extent to its difficulty, but still more to the indisputable role that the 'Ebed Yahweh figure and its ideological world played for Jesus and his messianic interpretation of himself and, therefore, also for the growth of the central dogma of Christian belief. For it should not be doubted that our Lord saw himself as the Messiah victorious and exalted by way of suffering, and interpreted his own situation and task in the light of this belief. Thus, from a viewpoint of value, we witness in Him the perfection of the deepest religious line of thought and belief that offers at the same time a background of imposing age: the chief prophetic /ine, the messianic line bringing home in Him its last and decisive victory in a revolutionary conception of the suffering Messiah, in what is probably best described as a combination of the 'Ebed Yahweh figure and the idea of the Son of Man both of them derived, ultimately, from the old kingship ideology, freed, however, from the earlier national limitation. 2 Admittedly,

1 The present paper is a revised translation of an essay in Swedish, published in Svensk Exegetisk Arsbok, x, 31-65, 1945. I am much indebted to Professor H. H. Rowley for his kindness in reading and correcting my English manuscript.

2 Cf. this with Fischer in Alttest. Abhandlwigen, viii: 5, pp. 81 ff., 1922 ; J. Jeremias in Deutsche Theologie, ii, 106 ff., 1929 ; Stauffer in Zeitschr. fur System. Theologie, viii, 212 ff., 1930-31 ; Sarachek, The Doctrine of the Messiah in Medieval Jewish Literature, p. 15,1932; Staerk, Soter, i, pp. 77 ff., 1933 ; ibid., ii, pp. 406 ff., 1938; Bonsirven.Le/uJafsme palestinien au temps dej£sus~Christ,i,pp.38\ ff., 1934; Volz, Die Eschatologie desjiid. Volkes, pp. 228 ff., 1934 ; Arvedson, Das Mysteritan Christi, p. 125, 1937; Procksch in Abhandl. der Herder-Ges. und des Herder- Instituts zu Riga, vi, 3, 146 ff., 1938 ; Johansson, Parakletoi, pp. 113 ff., 301 ff.. 1940; Briere-Narbonne, Le Messie souffrant dans la literature rabbinique (not accessible), 1940; Wolff, Jesaja 53 im Urchristentum, 1942; Leslie in N.T. Studies, ed. Booth, pp. 38 ff., 1942 ; Burkill in Expos. Times, Ivi, 11.305 ff., 1945 ;

54

'EBED YAHWEH SONGS 55Judaism later on avoids the idea of the suffering Messiah. 1 So much the more important, then, is the quite obvious fact that the conception of the suffering Messiah is to be found within the Old Testament itself as it was also no doubt originally existent in certain Jewish circles. 2

While on the one hand the apprehension of the significant role played in this respect by the 'Ebed Yahweh figure, especially in the form it has been given in Isa. liii, seems to be coming out in recent research, on the other hand, certain religio- historical lines have also been drawn, more or less vaguely, backwards to " the Tammuz god " ever since the days of " pan- Babylonism ". It was, however, reserved for the last few years' research to present new material and arrive at new knowledge likely to put the whole problem in a new light. Thus, much comparative material has been put together and placed at our disposal by Witzel in his significant collections and interpreta­ tions of Sumero-Accadian Tammuz liturgies. 3 Secondly, the

Journet, Destinies d'Israel, pp. 70 ff., 1945, and lately, Riesenfeld, Jdsus trans­ figure", pp. 81 ff., 307 ff., 1947. I have pointed to the combination of motifs mentioned above in my (Swedish) work Gamla Testamentet. En traditionshistorisk inledning, i, p. 167, 1945. As to my conception of the role of messianism in the prophets I refer to the exposition in the same book which is to appear in the near future in an English edition. From a traditio-historical point of view, sup­ plemented by comparative-form-literary, cult-historical, religio-psychological, and other arguments, I reject there the literary-critical removal of the messianic sayings as " secondary ", and denote, on the contrary, the messianic line as the chief line in the prophets already in pre-exilic times. Cf. below, p. 67, n. 3.

1 To a great extent owing to direct opposition to the Christian interpretation, with which cf. also Guillaume in Theology, xii, 67, 1926, and Riesenfeld, pp. 81 ff., who inter a/, points out that the Targum's re-interpretation of Isa. liii into positive messianic categories must be an intentional anti-Christian transposition of an originally contrary conception.

2 Thus e.g. the idea of the suffering Messiah still stands out quite clearly in the circle behind I. Enoch. Cf. Johansson, Parakletoi, pp. 113 ff., who is wholly right, vs. Sjoberg, Der Menschensohn im dthiop. Henochbuch, pp. 116 ff., 1946. Cf. lately also Riesenfeld, pp. 314 ff.

3 Above all his Tammuz-Liturgien und Verwandtes (Analecta Orientalia, X), 1935. In my dissertation Studies in Divine Kingship in the Ancient Near East, pp. 49, etc., 1943, I pointed emphatically to the importance of Witzel's editions. The work along these lines has since been taken up by Widengren (Religionens vdrld, 1945, etc.), and lately by Haldar (Studies in the Book of Nahum, 1947, The Role of ' the Desert J in Sumero-Accadian and West-Semitic Religion, 1947, both in Uppsala Univ. Arsskrift).

56 THE JOHN RYLANDS LIBRARYcultic texts from Ugarit have now definitely proved to us that " the Tammuz god " has played quite as important a role in the west-Semitic area in the 'Al'iyan Ba'al figure, the dying and rising god, depicted in the old, well-known categories. Finally, and in close relation to the fact just mentioned, the time seems to have come for placing the 'Ebed Yahweh figure in a special, internally Israelite context thanks to the discovery that the most important 'Ebed Yahweh song in Isa. liii is not so absolutely unique in the Old Testament as has hitherto been asserted, but belongs together with a suite of " royal passion psalms 'V

In principle, there is, however, at the same time a distinct difference between the two kinds of texts. For in accordance, of course, with the now current cultic interpretation of the Psalter, which, following the experts of late years, 2 unanimous in the main though varying in details, we may safely denote as the only possible interpretation in their original situation the psalms at issue are to be judged as rituals directly referring to the function­ ing in the cult of the sacral king. The 'Ebed Yahweh texts must on the contrary be characterized as a prophetic re-modelling

1 Several relevant Ugaritic parallels are to be found in my Studies, and will be referred to in the following. Of such " 'Ebed Yahweh psalms " I have pointed especially to Ps. xviii, xxii, xhx, cxvi, etc., and Isa. xxxviii: 9 ft. (Studies, p. 176, n. 4). The same conception recurs in Widengren (p. 224), with reference to Ps. Ixxxviii and Ixxxix. Johnson in his very important paper in The Labyrinth, 1935, has shown us the picture of the Davidic king as humiliated and suffering in the cult without drawing, however, the line to 'Ebed Yahweh in Isa. liii or Tammuz, whose name is not mentioned. One of the main purposes of my own dissertation was to show that the Tammuz line and the royal cult line are in reality merely two aspects of one and the same thing; they are, ultimately, " identical ". Cf. Studies, p. 113, etc., and later, concerning Ps. Ixxxix, Widengren in Religion och Bibel, ii, 68, 1943. Further, the mythological line from Tammuz via Ras Shamra's Krt to 'Ebed Yahweh has been clearly seen and pointed out by Mowinckel in Norsk Teologisk Tidsskrift, xliii, 24 ff., 1942. Cf. my Studies, p. 152, n. 1. Some parallels from Ras Shamra are also given by Hyatt in JNES iii, 79 ff., 1944, a paper that did not come into my hands until recently. Hyatt is right, at least partly, in his working out of the motifs behind the 'Ebed figure, especially the Tammuz motif. But he has completely missed the really decisive fact in my opinion, the interpretation of 'Ebed Yahweh in the royal messianic terms, and the identity between " the Tammuz god " and the king (cf. below).

2 Represented by names like Mowinckel, Pedersen, Bentzen, Oesterley, Johnson, Diirr.

'EBRD YAHWEH SONGS 57of a liturgical composition belonging to the Annual Festival. 1 Owing to the indispensable and quite obviously strong Accadian influence upon " Deutero-Isaiah ", 2 especially emergent in the 'Ebed Yahweh sections, one has no right in theory to infer simply from these texts an underlying Israelite cultic reality, and to assert that behind them lie " old formulas which show that the Israelite king too has been worshipped as the suffering and dying * Tammuz ' ", nor without further notice to call 'Ebed Yahweh " the king ", and so on. 3 Personally I am anxious to stress that it is by no means my opinion that 'Ebed Yahweh is the king and divine substitute, suffering in the cult. As inti­ mated already, he is the Messiah depicted in these categories.*

Bentzen's objection that " we have no evidence that ' the suffering of the king ' plays any role in the Israelite ritual " is nevertheless invalid.5 We have such evidence, to wit, in theroyal passion psalms just mentioned.6 And, thus, it is clear that the idea of the king as suffering in the cult has really playeda role within Israel's own area, too. Therefore we have the

1 This literary type of " Deutero-Isaiah " is nowadays commonly observed, as is, too, the connexion with cultic forms of expression as a whole. The ideo­ logical bond of union with " the enthronement psalms " was pointed out strongly and very meritoriously by Mowinckel already in his Psalmenstudien, ii, 195, 229 ff., etc., 1922, and lately in Del Gamle Testaments, iii (in Norwegian), 188 f. t 1944. The same holds true of Wensinck, Bohl, Bleeker, Diirr, and others.

2 Especially from the stylistical point of view emphasized byKittel, Gressmann, Jeremias, Zimmern, Stummer, and others. Cf., further, below, especially p. 59, n. 3.

3 I refer here to some modes of expression in Widengren who, however, elsewhere puts it in a way that I can accept fully, e.g. " The Lord's Servant, i.e., the saviour figure depicted in the motifs of the king ideology " (Religion och Bibel, p. 61), or " pictured as the king who in his person represents the whole people " (Religionens vdrld, p. 224). And thus when it comes to the point, I think Widengren and I are quite agreed in our conception of 'Ebed Yahweh.

4 Regarding the connotation of the term Messiah as used here, see below, p. 90, n. 1.

5 Jesaja fortolket (in Danish), ii, 100, 1943, with the typical addition : " un­ less one interprets all suffering psalms as royal psalms which I am not in a position to carry through ".

6 It is enough with some / As regards Ps. Ixxxix, Johnson has already drawn attention to0the matter, and after him Widengren in a paper in Swedish in Svensfc Exegetisk Arsbok, x, 66 ff., 1945, Konungens vistelse i dodsriket (The King's Sojourn in the Underworld) ; as regards Ps. cxvi myself in a preliminary way in my Studies (p. 210, n. 2), and later in a detailed investigation soon to be published.

58 THE JOHN RYLANDS LIBRARYright to assume that it is not only a Babylonian but also, and foremost, an internal Israelite cultic reality whose ideological consequences are drawn out and applied to the expected Messiah, in formulas and modes of expression derived from this cult. And so " the Tammuz ideology " with its underlying cultic realities sheds a luminous light upon the fact that the Davidic Messiah can contemporaneously be the suffering Messiah. We need not speak of 'Ebed Yahweh as a *' parallel figure " of Messiah. 1 'Ebed Yahweh is the Messiah himself, the Saviour king of the dynasty of David waited for. 2

The objections to the validity of the Tammuz parallels raised, e.g. by Mowinckel 3 and Jahnow 4 are wholly confuted thanks to the material now at our disposal and the widened knowledge won through it. Thus the resurrection of " the Tammuz god " is textually proved by the fray 'Al'iydn Balu ('* 'Al'iyan Ba'al is alive ") from Ras Shamra,5 and further the state­ ment is shown to be too hasty that we " von Leiden, Verhohnungen, Verfolgungen, Folterungen usw. des Tammuz in den Liedern nie etwas horen ", as well as that we " ebenso wenig bei den genannten Gottern von freiwilligem Sichhingeben, von schwei- gender Geduld in den Liedern horen ".6 Finally, it is also impossible to follow Mowinckel and acknowledge a formal- stylistic influence while denying a corresponding topical con­ nexion 7 to wit, in a case like ours where the conceptions not

1 Gressmann (Der Ursprung der isr.-jtid. Eschatologie, p. 327), and others.2 Thus I cannot acknowledge the right to conclude e silentio regarding the

Davidic name, as does Rudolph in spite of his own pointing out that of his­ torical persons in the Old Testament the title 'Ebed Yahweh is most often used of Moses and David (ZAW, xliii, 110, 1925). Cf. also p. 93, n. 1.

3 Der Krtecht Jahwas (Bihefte til Norsk Teol. Tidsskrift, xxii, 60 f., 1921).4 Das hebrdische Leichenlied (Beiheft zur ZAW, xxxvi), 1923.

5 Text / AB, iii: i ff. *?]sn ^ fix om/ftsn p0]x TI amif *1X. " And, lo, 'Al'iyan Ba'al is alive, yea, lo, the prince-Lord of the Land

exists ", followed in vi: 30 ff., by Ba'al's enthronization. (See my Studies, pp. 122 f.)

6 Mowinckel, p. 61. But cf. the material adduced below !7 p. 62. On the other hand, Mowinckel has come very close to the truth

when he points out energetically the importance to the 'Ebed Yahweh figure of the ideal of the innocent suffering man, well-known to the old cult psalms, to wit, because " the subject " in a great deal of these psalms is exactly the king in his " suffering " in the cult.

'EBED YAHWEH SONGS 59only belong to the same culture area and the individual forms as well as the whole underlying " cult pattern " and ideology are closely related, but where also the Israelite notion must have been directly influenced by the Babylonian environ­ ment. 1

On the other hand, such a comparative view must of course by no means encroach upon the elaboration of the characteristics of the Old Testament ideological configuration, but on the contrary serve as a medium precisely to this end.

II

Alongside the religio-historical and exegetical problem touched upon above, and in close inner connexion with it, the literary problem too offers itself, in a restricted sense comprising the question of the extent of the 'Ebed Yahweh songs and their relation to the surrounding texts. Of these questions the last is decidedly the most important, carrying us over in fact to a far greater problem of principle: the acceptance or non- acceptance of the literary-critical view and its replacement by a traditio-historical conception and method. To enter upon the whole scope of this problem is here out of the question. However, it seems necessary to bring the two conceptions of the Book of Isaiah into relief against each other.

The representatives of literary criticism meaning the over­ whelming majority of Old Testament scholars as is well-known divide the book of Isaiah into three main parts, " Proto-Isaiah ", chs. i-xxxix, *' Deutero-Isaiah ", chs. xl-lv, and " Trito-Isaiah ",

1 Though it is a matter of course that the influence is first and foremost a literary one (cf. p. 57, n. 2), we must, however, state a topical influence, too, to wit, that in this way an autochthonic Israelite ideological world, founded in its turn on a cultic background, has been actualized through the Babylonian milieu (cf. pp. 79 f.). Thus I cannot by any means accept Nyberg's declaration that it is " quite as absurd psychologically as historically unmotivated" that " Deutero-Isaiah " could be directly influenced by the Accadian milieu. I would judge precisely the opposite and thus rather be inclined to concur with Hyatt in his statement that " Deutero-Isaiah may indeed, have seen some por­ tions of the myth enacted in Babylonian ritual " (JNES, iii, 84, 1944). And it is quite as obvious that he himself, as well as his fellow-countrymen, has been influenced by it.

60 THE JOHN RYLANDS LIBRARYchs. Ixi-lxvi,1 which are placed in pre-exilic, exilic, and post- exilic time respectively. The connexion between the three books is viewed as occasional or non-existent. And to the question why they are put together at all and by tradition ascribed to the prophet Isaiah one has no answer, since a reference to literary redactions is in reality no answer. Within the three parts of the book " primary " and " secondary " material is distinguished and separated off by means of the whole arsenal of literary criticism, not least the form-literary method and its foundation metrics. In accordance with more or less subjective rules and in historicistic interpretations the material is then localized in time and space in a hyper-ingenious way. 2 Naturally, in this connexion the 'Ebed Yahweh songs, too, are separated from their environment Duhm was the first here as well as in the separation of " Trito-Isaiah " in which they are held to be secondarily inserted, wherever they are judged older or, more commonly, younger than their context. This separation line is emphatically represented, e.g. by Mowinckel 3 and Volz.4 According to Mowinckel's latest opinion the 'Ebed Yahweh songs denote a later correction of " Deutero-Isaiah's " original belief in Cyrus as the Messiah 6 and come from a special " 'Ebed circle " influences from a more traditio-historical attitude are here active gathered round the memory of " a Jewish prophet or missionary somewhere in the time after Deutero-Isaiah ", but " whose name and closer conditions of life are unknown **.'

1 The separating of " Deutero-Isaiah " from " Proto-Isaiah " goes back to P*derlein (1775), that of " Trito-Isaiah " to Duhm (1892). The latter operation ii Jled by Dahl a fatal mistake that has developed into " a mischievous Franken­ stein of modern criticism " (Ji Lt xlviii, 363, 1929). The unity of the Book of Isaiah is maintained only by fundamentalists like Lias in Bibliotheca Sacra, Ixxi 560 ff., 1915 ; ibid., Ixxv, 267 ff., 1918, and Kaminka in Revue des Etudes Juives, Ixxx, 42 ff., 1925, etc.

2 The absolute extreme of atomizing and logicism is achieved by Caspar! in Beiheft zur ZAW, Ixv, 1934.

3 Thus in Ada Orientalia, xvi, 1 ff., 1937, and Dei Gamle Testamente (in Norwegian), iii, 192 ff., 1944.

4 Jesaja ii, in Kommentar zum A.T., 'x. 2, 1932.6 Concerning the Cyrus problem, ch (besides the commentaries) Kittel in

ZAW xiii, 149 ff., 1898, Haller in Festschrift Cunfc/, i, 261 ff., 1923; Bames in JThSt xxxii, 32 ff., 1931 ; Simcox in JAOS, Ivii, 158 ff., 1937. Cf. also p. 68, n. 4.

6 Det Gamle Testamente, p. 196.

'EBED YAHWEH SONGS 61However, there are also, it is true, scholars standing in

principle more or less completely on the ground of literary criticism, who rather energetically stress the connexion with the environment. Here belong e.g. Condamin,1 Diirr,2 Torrey,3 Feldmann,4 and not least Bentzen in his new (Danish) com­ mentary on Isaiah.5 Birkeland, claiming to represent in prin­ ciple a traditio-histoncal point of view, emphasizes, it is true, that when viewed from the literary standpoint, the 'Ebed Yahweh songs belong from the very outset to the book of Deutero- Isaiah.6 He takes them, however, as tradition material of a specific kind and origin, his idea of their import being rather strange. Originally, they had an individual bearing, he thinks, though later on they became collectively re-interpreted within a smaller circle and at the same time supplemented with the idea of substitutional suffering. In connexion with the ex­ pectations actualized though soon baffled through the ap­ pearance of Cyrus the sayings spread into wider circles, and were interpreted as referring to Israel. This fictitious con­ struction is concluded by Birkeland in the following words : " Wir konnen dafiir dankbar sein, dass die Ebed-Gestalt und seine Worte (falsch) gedeutet wurden ; denn sonst waren sie nie das Eigentum einer Gemeinschaft geworden, und wir

1 Le livre d'lsaie, 1905.2 Urspnmg und Ausbau der isr.-jiid. Heilandserwartung, 1925.3 The Second Isaiah, 1928.4 Dos Bach Isaias, ii, 1926, in Exeget. Handbuch zum A.T.5 Jesaja fortolket, ii, 1943. Bentzen shows already in his Indledning til det

Gamle Testarr .tte, i-iii, 1941, noticeable influences from the traditio-histoncal view, though he is not aware of the impossibility of combining it with the literary-critical standpoint. In a critical review of Bentzen's commentary in the Dansk Teologisk Tidsskrift, ix, 142 ff., 1946, Mowinckel has remarkably enough styled it " partly a step backwards ", advancing anew his atomistic view of " Deutero-Isaiah " that is said to consist of fifty small pieces between which there exists no connexion, either logical, or topical, so that instead " every one of them can be taken out or moved without the least change in the total impression " (p. 146). I think few scholars of standing would now be willing to consent to this statement. And the claims to " continuity " that Mowinckel raises here, pp. 148 ff. are, too, of such a modern-logicistical nature, that it will turn out very difficult to find any sections at all in the whole prophetic literature of the Old Testament satisfying them.

6 Zum hebrdixhen Traditionswesen, pp. 35 ff., 1938.5 *

62 THE JOHN RYLANDS LIBRARYwiirden sie nicht iiberliefert bekommen haben tf . 1 Such a conception of the tradition motif behind our texts is a priori incredible, in itself a testimony of a remaining in the literary critical wishful dream : the layer interpretation. 2

Scholars of most recent years tend, however, as indicated above, towards the incontestable factual connexion between the 'Ebed Yahweh songs and the surrounding textual sections from the point of view of language as well as composition and ideology. The very difficulties in the attempts at distinguishing the songs as literary units and the very different results should be sufficient evidence for the fact that they are from the first at home in their environment. This has been clearly seen by the author of the latest and hitherto probably best theological com­ mentary on Isaiah, Kissane.3 Even though it does not result in a unitary interpretation of the 'Ebed Yahweh songs he never­ theless stresses this connexion very energetically and exactly by means of his viewing Isaiah liii in the light of its association with the sequence,4 he has rightly seen that we are here concerned precisely with the Davidic messianic king, the same Messiah

1 Zum hebraischen Traditionswesen, p. 39.2 Conceivably, Birkeland is influenced by Rudolph (ZAW, xliii, pp. Ill ff.,

1925), in his conception referred to here. The opposition between individual and collective, being a seed of dissension and one of the old exegetical bosom sins, the consequences of which are to be traced also in an interpretation like Birkeland's, has no support in the texts themselves, nor in the ideology they express. Their oscillating individual-collective view is fully understood from the royal- ideological interpretation. It is a characteristic manifestation of " the primitive type-thinking ", " the corporative view ", or whatever it may be called, according to which the king is the corporalizer of the whole people, its representative. This fundamental view gives a large element of truth also to the Jewish interpretation of 'Ebed Yahweh as Israel. At the same time, the messianic interpretation along the royal-ideological lines also explains the typical affinity, not to say " identity ", between Yahweh and His Servant, that speaks to us out of the texts themselves. The king, and thus the Messiah, too, represents not only the people before their god, but also the god before his people. It may be added that Hyatt in his paper mentioned above justly reckons with " the idea of corporate personality ", follow­ ing Wheeler Robinson in Beiheft zur ZAW, Ixvi, 49 ff., 1936, as the first of the motif sources of the Servant idea (pp. 79 ff.). He has overlooked, however, the ultimately decisive point: the special role of the king in this respect.

3 The Book of Isaiah, J-ii, 1941-1943.4 Cf. Mowinckel's attempt in ZAW, xlix, 247, 1931, to show by means of

association word arguments that the poem is secondarily inserted at its place. The weakness of the argumentation should be obvious, I think, to every reader.

'EBED YAHWEH SONGS 63who plays so important a role already in Amos, Hosea, and " Proto- Isaiah ", and whose way to triumph and glorification thus goes through substitutionary suffering * all this the more remarkable as Kissane has no idea of the royal ideological line, nor any contact with recent religio-historical research in this area. 2

My own conception of the traditio-historical problem of the book of Isaiah, implying inter alia, the denial of the mechanical tripartition of the " book " through literary criticism, has been laid down briefly in the Swedish paper underlying this one. It recurs in a detailed way in part II of my work " The Old Testament. A Traditio-historical Introduction " which in the near future will appear in an English edition. Owing to limita­ tions of space I do not repeat my treatment here, but content myself with the following remarks of direct importance to our subject.

1 Kissane, ii, 174 ff. In my above-mentioned book, Gamla Testamentet, I have myself energetically advanced a unitary messianic interpretation of 'Ebed Yahweh, in accordance with my conception of the real role of messianism in the history of Israelite religion. It may be noted that Bentzen still maintains the explanation of 'Ebed Yahweh as the prophet himself.

2 This deficiency is the reason why Kissane has not reached a uniform con­ ception of all the 'Ebed Yahweh songs, the first and second of which he interprets though somewhat hesitatingly as referring to Israel, the third to the prophet himself, and the fourth to the suffering Messiah. It was not until after the transla­ tion of this paper that I learned of Burrows'very stimulating essay in his TheGospel of the Infancy (Bellarmine Series, vi, 59 ff.). Burrows has many good observations in details, and above all he is right in emphasizing the intimate and conclusive connexion between 'Ebed Yahweh and the Davidic House. The Servant is to him " the House of David, the messianic house in the past, present or future as the case may be " (p. 60). He assigns these parts of the Servant thus, that in the first and second songs 'Ebed Yahweh is " either the house of David or the future ideal king ", resolving, ultimately, upon the latter possibility, whereas the suffer­ ing 'Ebed of the third and fourth songs is the Davidic king during the exile, i.e. Jehoiachin (p. 67). This partition is unnecessary and impossible, however, the interpretation involving an historicistical presumption that is, as a matter of fact, noted as impossible by Burrows himself (pp. 69 ff.), in that neither the description of the Servant's suffering, nor his factual death tallies with what is historically known of King Jehoiachin. (Cf. II Kings, xxv, 27 ff., Jer. Hi, 31 ff. As is well- known, Sellin once emphatically identified 'Ebed Yahweh with Jehoiachin.) None the less, Burrows has come nearer to the truth than most other scholars. But a wholly unitary conception of the Servant figure is, of course, the most pre­ ferable, and such an explanation is made possible thanks to the royal pattern interpretation, and to it alone.

64 THE JOHN RYLANDS LIBRARY" Deutero-Isaiah " is a prophetic collection of traditions of

the type I have called liturgy taking the word in a strict form- literary sense, so that the question of its possible directly cultic connexion is left open, a question that has to be decided by means of other criteria. I have already intimated that " Deutero- Isaiah " is not a cult liturgy, but a prophetic imitation thereof. The " Deutero-Isaian " collection is organically related to " Proto-Isaiah " in so far as behind it stands a traditiomst circle possibly also an individual poet with direct personal and topical connecting lines to the latter. The boundary line stands, however, conceivably already at ch. xxxv which is typically " Deutero-Isaian 'V Our tradition collection has its own dis­ tinctive character in comparison with the rest of the material in Isaiah, not least owing to its strictly consistent composition, given by its very nature of an imitation of an actual Annual Festival liturgy. Of this unity the 'Ebed Yahweh songs, too, form integral and indispensable items. Thus it must be denoted as fundamentally erroneous to treat these songs without regard to the rest of the text, or still more, to treat one of them not considering the others. As for me, I join Kissane wholly in

1 Thus first Olmstead, 1915 (see AJSL, liii, 251 f., 1936-1937), then Kohler, Mowinckel. Torrey, and lately, Scott (AJSL, Hi, 178 f., 1935-1936). Chapter xxxiv, too, may possibly be counted in with " Deutero-Isaiah ", since it has a great deal in common with xxxv, as has been pointed out from various points of view and with different solutions of the problem, e.g. by Duhm and Torrey (cf. lately JBL, Ivii, 109 ff., 1938). See also Kissane, Isaiah, i, 380 ff., and Birkeland, pp. 33 ff. To the literary-critics the fact is a heavy stumbling-block, while from a traditio-historical viewpoint by no means surprising. Chapters xxxvi-xxxix form a special tradition complex the core of which is " the psalm of Hezekiah " in xxxviii: 9-20. This complex is of course not, as assumed by the literary critics, secondarily taken over from II Kings, xviii: 1 ff., re-modelled and increased by various " redactions ", additions, etc. (thus e.g. lately Mowinckel in his Del Gamle Testamente, in, 177 f.), but " Proto-Isaian " tradition material, typically enough handed down in the (or a) " Deutero-Isaian " traditiomst circle, a variant tradition of II Kings, xviii: 1 ff. It is therefore fundamentally erroneous to raise the question of priority as between the two. If one asks on the other hand for the reason why the complex is found precisely here in " Deutero-Isaiah ", the answer is near at hand in my opinion. The reason is the formal, and above all, the topical connexion between the royal passion psalm in xxxviii, 9-20 and the 'Ebed Yahweh songs. According to the common traditio-historical manner of proceeding the whole tradition complex was hereby taken over, not only the relevant passion psalm.

'EBED YAHWEH SONGS 65the following judgment: " The context is the guide to the interpretation, and disregard of the context leads to chaos 'V The comments of a topical and linguistic character to be given in the following have intentionally this exegetical main principle in sight, as far as the restricted space allows.

Ill

Already the first 'Ebed Yahweh song, xlii: 1 ff., tallies very well with the definitely liturgic-formal context spoken of above and manifest in a characteristic way already in xl: 1 ff. with its *' liturgic voices ", its " glad tidings " (xl: 9) of the divine epiphany (DDTI^X Hin, v, 9c), 2 its epithetical hypostatization so typical for the messianic style, and its shepherd metaphor. The organic connexion with the environment is also emphatically pointed out by Bentzen.3 Topically it is in the first place represented by "")tP!3?D in xli: 27, xln : 1, constituting precisely the content of the " glad tidings " promised therein. It also opens with )H, " lo", typically introducing an epiphany. Otherwise xlii: 1 ff. formally looks most like an oracular as­ sertion in which the royal qualifications of the Servant are

1 Isaiah, ii, p. Ixviii.2 It may deserve noting that the adversative clause in xl: 8

OVlS?1? Dip'' shows that there was evidently a previous prophecy of weal to link up with.

3 Pages 29 f. (vs. Mowinckel). In an original but wholly subjective re- interpretation of " Deutero-Isaiah " in Pauline categories, Volz makes him an eschatological theologian and preacher, the founder of the synagogue and the mission. Rejecting Hi: 13 ff., as an 'Ebed Yahweh song because of its missing mission motif he reckons instead xlii: 5-9 as a distinct song, probably as a con­ cession to the traditional number of four. In a similar way the 'Ebed Yahweh figure in Isa. liii is separated from that of the other songs also by Staerk in ZAW, xliv. 252 ff. 1926. Cf. with this Rudolph in ZAW, xlvi, 159 ff., 1928. In my opinion it is false method even to deal with a single song without paying regard to the others. (Thus vs. Nyberg, too.) The fact that the Servant's death is mentioned in Isa. liii was the reason why Mowinckel gave up his former inter­ pretation of 'Ebed Yahweh as " Deutero-Isaiah " himself. He was reproached with this desertion of his colours by Sellin who solves the problem by assuming that Isa. liii is composed by " Trito-Isaiah " on the event of " Deutero-Isaiah's " suffering martyrdom (ZAW, Iv, 179 ff., 185, 1937).

66 THE JOHN RYLANDS LIBRARYaccumulated *: he is upheld, chosen, beloved, possessing the

spirit; he also has his own min or DDttfTD, 2 his royal judicial function, the discharging and extending of which is his special task. What is said here in v : 1 is an ideological shaping of the cultic reality given in Ps. ii: 7, TmV1 OYTJ ^X TIDX ^3, " my son art thou ; I have brought thee forth to-day ". In v. 5 we meet with the so-called auto-louange style, well-known from Accadian texts. In v. 6 the call motif recurs, and v. 7, " to open blind eyes, to bring the captive out of the prison, out of the captivity place those sitting in the dark ", offers a typical royal messianic ideology, almost wearisomely repeated in Accadian royal hymns.3 In vv. 8 f. the self-predicatory style recurs again, and w. 10-12 give the hymnic conclusion in elaborate " enthronement psalm " style. This said, it is also said that

1 Mowinckel asserts that the Servant is thought of here " as a prophet, not as a king " (Det Gamle Testamente, p. 195 from the erroneous starting-point that the idea of the suffering Messiah is not met with in Judaism but is " notionally a self-contradiction "), thus putting these two categories in opposition to each other. This is, however, not justified, as the king himself is, ideologically and in principle, " the primeval prophet". On the other hand, Mowinckel himself points out that the stylistic form is the typically royal one (pp. 210 f., etc.). The assertion is of course founded upon a petitio principii, to wit, that 'Ebed Yahweh is an individual historic prophet. Then it remains, however, to show that the forms are disintegrated. The royal-messianic interpretation, on the contrary, takes the form of expression verbally for what it is. As regards the kingship ideology alluded to here, and related questions, I have to refer the reader to my book. Studies in Divine Kingship.

2 Cf. with this Begrich, Studien zu Deuterojesaja (Beitrage zur Wiss. vom A* and N.T., iv. 25, 1938), pp. 161 ff.; also Burrows, The Gospel of the Infancy; pp. 65 ff. (ODtPft, " the right of the Messianic House of David, as in Ezekiel "» n. 2, p. 66). With the king's epithet " Chosen ", cf. my Studies, pp. 76 ff., especially n. 1, p. 77, with reference to Ps. xxii: 10, Ixxi: 6, cxxxii: 11, Isa. xliv : 2, 24, xlix : 1. The idea is there traced back to a pre-Israelite, Canaanite royal ideology (cf. p. 94, n. I), and it is also stated that the 'Ebed Yahweh ideology is originally " obviously nothing but king ideology ".

3 In the light of this evidence, MowinckeFs conclusion appears an unwarranted histoncism that " Deutero-Isaiah " cannot possibly have lived among the exiled because " dazu smd seine Vorstellungen von den in' Lochern ' und' Gefangnissen* schmachtenden Gefangenen viel zu ungeschichtlich, vgl. auch 52.11, 47.9". (ZAW, xlix, 244, n. 1, 1931). With Dtf IVD in xlii: 6 cf. Pedersen, Den semitiske Ed, p. 46, 1912, and, still better, with a reference to the role of sacral kingship (the king as vopos ffjuftvxos) Ostborn, Torn in the Old Testament* p. 77, 1945.

'EBED YAHWEH SONGS 67every drawing of a boundary line at v. 4 or 7 is completely mistaken.

The passage xlii: 13 ff., then, is directly joined to the pre­ ceding. Vv. 18ff. strongly remind one of an 'Ebed Yahweh song, both stylistically and ideologically, the Servant here as so often in " Deutero-Isaiah " being Israel. It may be possible to understand the blindness, too, as a royal ideological item.1 Further, xliii: 1 ff. offer another royal protection oracle. In v. 4 DTK may conveniently be taken in the meaning of " Man ",** Grand man ", i.e. the king, as Sumerian LU.GAL., Accadian amelu. The collecting of the dispersed, w. 5 ff., is one of the commonest royal-messianic motifs met with in numerous Ac­ cadian royal texts, though in the Old Testament almost histori- cistically interpreted as referring to the exile. Again, xliv : 1 ff. is still another protection oracle in the usual royal ideological style, here with strong features of " Tammuz ideology " especially in v. 3 where, typically enough, are to be found parallel to each other pouring of water and pouring of the spirit. In conjunction therewith should be viewed the occurrence of the name Jeshurun in v. 2. It is a ** poetic " synonym of Israel clearly related precisely to " the Tammuz ideology ". 2

Upon the introductory auto-louange style in xliv: 24 ff. follows then in xlv: 1 ff. the first direct Cyrus prophecy 3 in

1 As to Egypt, cf. Wainwright, The Sky-Religion in Egypt, pp. 76 f., 1938.2 From the same stem as HIPX ; see Naor in ZAW, xlix, 317 ff., 1931 ;

Danell, Studies in the Name Israel in the O.T., pp. 22 ff., 1946; Engnell in Symbolae Biblicae Upsalienses, vii, 19 f., 1946. It is worth observing that in v. 5 Dpy and 7N"1tZT' stand in the old meaning of divine names, synonymous with Yahweh (cf. e.g. Ps. xxiv : 6). One might feel tempted, on account of the sphere in which we undeniably find ourselves here, hypothetically to reckon with an auditory mistake or, may be, a conscious censoring of an original inftETl*V22n~"pD, " and one rejoices over ' the Son of verdure ' " (" Tammuz "). But this is, of course, a mere suggestion.

3 In a sharp and just settling of accounts with Torrey's impossible interpola­ tion hypothesis Mowinckel points out (ZAW xlix, 100, n. 2 ; cf. Ada Or., xvi, 3 f.) that the attachment of the sayings according to the association word principle is a proof of their authenticity. Of course, he is right in this statement. Then we may ask, however, why this is not valid also for the prophetic literature in its entirety, where the positive, messianic sayings alternate with the prophecies of doom according to precisely the same association word principle ? But in this case we are always referred to a secondary scheme, ascribed by Mowinckel to the

68 THE JOHN RYLANDS LIBRARYwhich Cyrus, a foreign ruler, is called tTTO, " Messiah ", " the Anointed " (cf. also Dan. ix : 25). From this fact one should not, however, jump to conclusions concerning " universalism " in " Deutero-Isaiah ". Thus in v. 4a the words "HUtf fJtib "HTQ ^fcnttTl 3piP, " because of my Servant Jacob and Israel my Chosen ", must of course not be taken as a gloss ". x On the contrary, these words are most emphatically stressed. True, the mode of thinking in " Deutero-Isaiah " is all through very strongly monotheistically tendentious. Contemporaneously it is, however, strictly nationalistically limited 2 a fact commonly rather unwillingly admitted by scholars.3 Together with the shepherd title in xliv: 28 and the anointing recur the standing royal ideological items of seizing by the hand and calling by name. In v. 6 the self-predicatory style starts anew. The " satiric theogony " (Volz) in xlvi : 1 ff. is evidence among countless others of the direct Babylonian background of " Deutero- Isaiah ". Because here the drama of the Accadian Annual Festival (akttu) is clearly presupposed in which Bel-Marduk and Nabu, the High god and his son, " the young god ", " the saviour god ", were the two most prominent " acting " gods.4

redactors or " disciples ". (I deal inter al. with this problem in a paper in Svensk Exegetisk Arsbok, xii, pp. 110 ff., 1947, on Prophecy and Tradition.)

1 Thus e.g. Volz, p. 59.2 Cf. in the following w, \4b, 24b.3 Cf. against this Pedersen's plain words in Israel, i, 527, n. 324: 1. The

latest treatments on the problem of " universalism " in " Deutero-Isaiah " are those by Blank in HUCA, xv, 1 ff., 1940, and Morgenstern in JBL, kii, 269 ff., 1943.

4 Cf. with this section Winckler in Altorientalische Forschungen, 3 : 2, 212 ff., 1902. In reality Cyrus restored the cult of Marduk that had been neglected during the reign of Nabonidus for that of Sin. " The eagle from the East, the Man of my counsel ", refers, according to a common view, to Cyrus. The eagle is the " royal " bird par preference in the Ancient Near East, a standing inter­ medium in the ideological arsenal of divine kingship. In xlviii: 146, too, most scholars think that " the Beloved of Yahweh " means Cyrus. (According to the Targum it refers to Abraham.) The epithet " Beloved " of the god, too, belongs to the standing requisites of the Near Eastern kingship ideology. The Hebrew "OHX HUT is an asyndetous relative clause (cf. Nyberg in Studien zum Hoseabuche, pp. 33 f., 1935).

'EBED YAHWEH SONGS 69 IV

Ch. xlix:l-13, the second 'Ebed Yahweh song, forms an integral part of the tradition complex xlix : 1 lii: 12,1 the motifs of which are the task of the Servant and the salvation of Zion. V. 1 refers in usual, typically royal categories to the Servant's election from his mother's womb and the mentioning of his name. The words in v. 2, " and he made my mouth like a sharp sword ", do not in the first place allude to the prophetic art of speaking as Volz and others think, but to the royal pronouncing of judgments. We have to do here with very old conceptions bound up with sacral kingship, well-known also from the Old Testament. We need only think of Isa. xi: 4 : " But he judgeth the poor with ' righteousness ', and reproveth with ' equity * for the meek of the land ; and he smiteth the wicked to the earth with the rod of his mouth, slaying him with the breath of his lips ". 2 It might deserve noting that in a *' Tammuz hymn '* it is said of Marduk who also as a " vegetation deity " corpor- alizes the universe: aqrabu shapatshu musheltu lishdnushu, *' a scorpion is his lip, a grindstone his tongue ". s Other items of kingship ideology too are mirrored in v. 2 as well as in w. 3 ff., e.g. the term Servant,4 the expression '* my God ", the gathering of the dispersed. Of the utmost importance is the close connexion between v. 7 and lii: 15 ff. Evidently the sphere of ideas is here wholly identical. Vv. 8 ff. constitute the hymnic

1 The song is usually restricted to w. 1 -6, tnus e.g. Duhm, Buhl, Gressmann, Kohler, Mowinckel. The opinions differ, however, considerably, and the con­ nexion with w. 7 ff. is justly stressed by Sellin, Fischer, Rudolph, and Bentzen (cf. below).

2 p"72£ and THZTQ, " Righteousness " and " Equity " are the two con­ stantly recurring hypostatized /oyal attributes, factually analogous to the Accadian tutelary deities £e/fu and mesharu, so often met with in royal texts. S7tZ?"1 is the object to both halves of the verse ; yiX is the adverbial accusative form.

3 The text is dealt with in Ebeling, Tod tmd Leben nach den Vorstellungen der Babylonier, pp. 28 ff., 1931.

4 " Servant " is originally a royal cultic title. See provisionally, e.g. W. R. Smith, Lectures on the Rel. of the Semites, p. 69, 19273 ; Cook in CAM, Hi, 490 f. ; Vincent, La religion des Judeo-Arami&ens d'Elephantine, p. 428, 1937 ; Jean in Melanges Syriens, ii, 705, 1939; Torrey in BASOR, Ixxix, 27 f., 1940; Engnell. Studies in Divine Kingship, p. 152, n. 1, and lately, also Burrows, The Gospel of the Infancy, pp. 64 f.

70 THE JOHN RYLANDS LIBRARYconcluding part, and must of course not be separated from the preceding.1 It culminates in the exhortation to eulogizing in v. 13 (cf. xlii: 10 ff.). Extremely contested is the word "7JOBT1 in v. 3. Its textual authenticity has lately been defended by Birkeland,2 whose above-mentioned reinterpretation hypothesis forces him, however, to declare it topically " secondary". According to Mowinckel it is " no doubt a gloss ".3 The pre­ sumed support in favour of this opinion is the fact that the word is missing in some Septuagint codices and in the Massoretic MS. Kennicott 96. The former fact is, however, a rather worthless criterion, for, judging from all evidence, the LXX is tendentious on this point. And in what concerns MS. Kennicott 96 Bewer has shown its very restricted value as a text witness in a special investigation of it, obviously not observed by Mowinckel.4 Moreover, the word is metri causa defended already by Praetorius.5

VThe typically " Proto-Isaian " word in w. 1 flf. is followed

by the third 'Ebed Yahweh song in 1:4-11. It is nowadays usually judged of as an individual lamentation psalm, e.g. by Begrich and Mowinckel, whereas Volz is hesitating, typically enough, because of the missing missionary motif.6 The poem has like the preceding 'Ebed Yahweh songs its tenor wholly given through the style of the royal categories, though with a far stronger and more typical stress upon " the Tammuz ideo­ logy " than before. It may be best rubricated as a royal psalm of confidence (of course still in imitation of the original cultic

1 Of late justly emphasized by Bentzen, pp. 83 f., as against Mowinckel and others. Bentzen also points to the connexion with xlix : 14 ff.

2 Zum. hebr. Traditionswesen, p. 36.8 Dei Gamle Testamente, iii, 233. Bentzen argues, logicistically, that the word

is a gloss (p. 80).4 In Jewish Studies (Kohut Memorial Vol.), pp. 86 ff., 1935.6 In ZAW, xxxvi, 9 f., 1916. Cf. too, Torrey, The Second Isaiah, p. 381.

The problem of ^fcOtZP in xlix : 3 is dealt with lately also by Burrows, pp. 62 ff.6 Page 160. On the question of " Deutero- Isaiah's " attitude towards " the

missionary problem ", see Rowley, The Missionary Message of the O.T., pp. 46 ff., 1944.

'EBED YAHWEH SONGS 71pattern) in parallelism with the Accadian so-called innocence psalms.1 Already "'HN in v. 4 gives an intimation of the royal categories. 2 In w. 4-5 we meet with the Servant as diviner which tallies with the fact that the king was in principle the only oracle receiver, the divination often taking place in the morning after a foregoing night of incubation. V. 6 offers elaborate ** Tammuz ideology " such as we know it both from Babylonia and Ras Shamra, 3 in its suffering aspect, whereas it has nothing to do, not even as a metaphor, with "the thrashing given at school ".4 V. 7 brings the confidence and silence motifs (for the latter, see below), w. 8-9 the characteristic " lawsuit motif " 5 (cf. liii: 8 ff.), and the enemy aspect. In w. 10-115 'Ebed-the king is still the speaking subject in the typical royal third person style. The factual description of disaster in v. 105 is also typical of the royal suffering ideology in its special infernal aspect 6 such as

1 See on this point my Studies, pp. 45 ff., etc., and Gamla Testamentet, i, pp. 58 ff.

2 Aboriginally it is the king alone who calls the god " my God ", with the first personal suffix. Torrey has seen something of this (p. 391). Cf. also Johnson in The Labyrinth, pp. 77 f., etc. O^TIQ 7 in v. 4 has no doubt a special meaning, cf. ii Sam. i: 18 (Torrey takes it as an abstract, p. 391). The primary notion of the stem is " to stick, sting ", which would tempt one to connect it with xlix: 2 (see above). Judging from the context, it probably refers to divination. "1DT belongs together with *lpDD "VST, and the following ^pDS is not dittography, but expresses distributive iteration : " morning after morning ". In v. 5 we should better read S7/Dttf, an " emphatic " or " precative " perfect.

(Cf. my Studies, Special Note, No. 16, pp. 207 ff., Gamla Testamentet, i, pp. 20 ff. Pedersen has declared himself wholly in agreement with my psychological view of the tense problem, a fact that means a great deal to me. I shall revert to the problem in not too remote a future. It is out of the question that a doctrin­ aire formalistic view, e.g. Bauer's, should satisfy, let who may defend it.)

3 See my Studies, pp. 35 f., etc., and cf. here especially Ps. cxxix: 3. Cf. also below, pp. 79 f.

4 Thus Bentzen, Jesaja, ii, p. 88.5 The role of the king in the Annual Festival drama is often viewed as a

lawsuit in which he appears accused, as the one who is responsible, not only for his own, but also for the sin of the whole people. After a confession the king atones for the guilt by way of various symbolic ritual acts, to which ideologically correspond his " suffering ", " death ", and " resurrection ". This " lawsuit motif " recurs in a standing phraseology, especially in many psalms of lamentation.

6 Cf. with this Graham-May in Culture and Conscience, pp. 131 ff., 1936; Robertson in AJSL, xlix, 316 ff., 1933 ; Staples in Iv, 54, 1938, and Engnell, Studies, Topical Index, s.v. " Passion ", etc.

72 THE JOHN RYLANDS LIBRARYit is to be found in " the passion psalms " and related texts (cf. e.g. Isa. viii: 20 ff.). 'Ebed is still the subject, the English (as well as the Swedish) version thus giving a false translation with its " he that walketh in darkness ... let him trust in . . ." whereas the right one should be: " Whosoever of you feareth Yahweh should listen to the voice of His Servant, who walketh in darkness having no light, but trusteth in the name of Yahweh and stayeth upon his God". V. lie finally, is Yahweh's oracle promise, confirming the curse imprecated upon the enemies in 1 la-fc. 1

Owing to space limitations it is impossible for me to enter upon the section li: 1-lii: 12 though it offers several facts of utmost interest, e.g. concerning the idea of God (p*IX JTirP, li: 1), the highly effective unity of liturgical structure, the connexion with the 'Ebed Yahweh songs, the disintegrated cup motif of li:17 ff., 2 the great significance of lii: 1-10 for the enthronization rites with their " glad tidings" and " turning of the destiny " (JTS HUT MO, TT^K -J^O, liwa, lii: 7 ff.), etc.3 May I only be permitted to point out one thing with regard to the introductory words in lii: 1, "H1S7 "HIS?, etc. ? According to Mowinckel these words are " in keeping with the exhortation words (spell-words) used by the thaumaturges at their miraculous healings, revivifications, and the like ".4 This

1 Bentzen judges of the whole w. 10-11 as such a closing oracle (pp. 87 f.). Otherwise these verses are almost exclusively taken by literary critical scholars as a " gloss " or a " redactory addition ", thus e.g. by Duhm, Volz, and Mowinckel. The latter*s motivation is " the vague style " of the verses, Yahweh being spoken of partly in the third person, partly " without transition " in the first person. By this he overlooks the typical and stylistical effect just pointed to above. The authenticity of the verses is on the other side defended by Kissane (pp. 146 f.). Bentzen points to the bonds of unity with the foregoing context, as well as with the rest of the 'Ebed Yahweh songs (pp. 87 f.). Cf. too, Van der Flier, Jesaja, ii (in Tekst en uiileg, 1926) who rightly stresses that " Dit derde lied geeft een soort voorspel op het vierde (vergl. vs. 4 en 53 : 1 en vs. 9 met 52 : 13) en herinnert tevens aan de twee voorafgaande (42 : 1-7 en 49 : 1-6) " (p. 107).

2 Cf. with this my Studies, Special Note No. 18, p. 210; also Witzel in Analecta Or., x, 220: 14 f., 1935, etc.

8 I deal with the section rather closely in my boqk Gamla Testamentet, ii. As regards " the pronouncing of the glad tidings " and its cultic background, cf., lately, Haldar in his Associations of Cult Prophets, pp. 128 f., 1945.

4 Del Gamle Testamente, p. 243.

'EBED YAHWEH SONGS 73statement can hardly aim at any dependence on such spells, we may suppose, since texts of this kind are non-existent so far as is known before the fifth century. But imperatives of this sort spoken to Tammuz in connexion with his resurrection are known. Thus, e.g. is cited in a liturgy x '* the word at which the hero is resurrected ", to wit, the formula (Accadian) : till rikab, tibi rikab, belum tibi rikab, " Get up, rise, get up, rise, oh Lord get up, rise ! " 2 To this kind of text we should turn, of course, in order to get light thrown upon corresponding phrases in the Old Testament. However, to call them " spell-words " seems to me less appropriate.

VI

Ch. lii: 13-liii: 12, the fourth 'Ebed Yahweh song may without any exaggeration be called the most important text of the Old Testament, as it is probably the one most often dealt with.3 Here the 'Ebed Yahweh ideology culminates, the suffering aspect being developed to its apex. The latter feature is easily overdone owing to the usual overlooking of the organic bond of union between our text and its environment. But the fact

1 Text in Witzel, pp. 133ff.2 Pages 140 : 4, 20 f. In another liturgy we find the (Sumerian) formula :

shesh-mu ki-na-zu zig-ga, " My brother, rise from thy couch ! " (312 : 21 f.).3 One agrees willingly with Torrey in the following statement: " This is a

composition which no thoughtful student of history can read without a feeling of awe. It is the most wonderful bit of religious poetry in all literature " (The Second Isaiah, p. 409). Personally, I should like to add even at the risk of being misunderstood that in my opinion the scholarly task is not, however, in the first place to deal in detail, and in a more or less psychological manner, with the religious experience behind the text, as it is ultimately as such beyond description, though open none the less to everyone in possession of a religious sensorium. Of the most important and latest special literature on the subject may be mentioned : Gressmann, Ursprung, pp. 301 (321) ff., 1905 ; Sellin, Die isr.-jiid. Heilandser- wartung, pp. 54 ff., 1909 ; Volz in Festschrift Budde (Beiheft zur ZAIV, xxxiv), 1920; Bleeker, Over inhoud en oorsprong van Israels heilserwachting, 1921 (not accessible) ; J. M. P. Smith in Journal of Rei, iii, 132 ff., 1923 ; Jahnow in Beiheft zur ZAW, xxxvi, 256 ff., 1923 ; Diirr, Ursprung und Ausbau, pp. 125 ff., 1925 (important!); Rudolph in ZAW, xliii, 90 ff., 1925; Guillaume in Theology, xii, 2 ff., 63 ff., 1926 ; Waterman in JBL, Ivi, 27 ff., 1937 ; Pedersen, Israel (Its Life and Culture), ii (iii-iv), 603 ff., 1940 ; Nyberg in Svensk Exegetisk Arsbok, vii, 5 ff., 1942 ; Engnell, ib., x, 32 ff., 1945. (Cf. also p. 92, n. 4, below.)

74 THE JOHN RYLANDS LIBRARYmust not be overshadowed that 'Ebed Yahweh is here, too, above all the Messiah victorious and triumphant through his vicarious suffering (vs. Volz, Sellin, Nyberg, and others).

The treatment in what follows is in principle based wholly upon the Massoretic text.1 The linguistic difficulties are great, but by no means insuperable. They are for the most part in­ herent in the text from the very outset, owing to the " mysterious " nature of the subject-matter itself. 2 The tense problem is of the utmost importance. Kissane justly says of the perfects in liii: 1 ff. that they refer to past time " only from the ideal stand­ point of the servant's contemporaries " and that it is " surprising that some critics have been led astray by the use of the past tenses in liii: 1 -8& into the view that the prophet is describing a historical figure of the past ", especially as the introduction and ending of the poem make it quite evident that it is a question of future time.3 We are justified in stating that this fact in its turn is due to a false appreciation of the real import and use of the perfect in Hebrew poetic and cultic texts.4

When viewed from a form-literary standpoint the fourth 'Ebed Yahweh song is judged of in various ways. By Gressmann, Rudolph, and others it is taken as preponderantly of the nature of a penitential psalm.6 To Begrich it looks most like an in-

1 On the very relative value of the versions, and their most remarkable re- interpretations, see the following fundamental works : Driver-Neubauer, The Fifty-third Ch. of Is. ace. to the Jewish Interpreters, i-ii, 1876-1877 ; Dalman, Der leidende und der sterbende Messias der Synagoge, 1888 ff.; Euler in Beitrage zur Wiss. vom A. und N.T., iv. 14, 1934 ; Ziegler in Alttestamentliche Abhandi, xii. 3, 1934 ; Seidelin in ZNW, xxxv, 194 ff., 1936 ; Nyberg, pp. 7 ff., and lately Fischel in HUCA, xviii, 53 ff., 1944. The value of the Septuagint has been justly judged of already by Ottley; see his Isaiah ace. to the Septuagint, p. viii, 1909. Cf. also Ziegler, pp. 211 f.

2 A fact pointed out also by Nyberg, p. 6. Cf. too, my Gamla Testamentet, J, 77 f.

3 Pp. 175, 178. Obviously, Kissane follows Feldmann, Der Knecht Gottes in Isaias Cap. 40-55, pp. 178 ff., 1907, and Fischer in Alttest. Abhandi, viii. 5, pp. 58 ff., 1922. Cf. also the following admission by Mowinckel: " It is in itself possible that the whole poem is meant as a future description, that the Servant from the point of view of the writer belongs wholly to the future " (Det Gamle Testamente, p. 247). Cf. further Torrey, p. 410, and Volz, p. 174.

*Cf. above, p. 71, n. 2.6 ZAW, xxxiv, 296, 1914; xliii, 92, 1925.

'EBED YAHWEH SONGS 75dividual psalm of thanksgiving.1 In Jahnow's strange opinion the song belongs to the qind, the dirge category, differing from it, however, in being wholly non-cultic. 2 Yet it is not a profane dirge either a contradictio in adjecto, by the way because it has been sung long after the death of the person in question ! But in spite of all it belongs together with the dirge, Jahnow opines, to wit, because of its motif, its topic. 3 Thus, in reality, the form-literary viewpoint is abandoned. According to Mowmckel, Isa. lni is " in its form a dirge with tunes from the penitential psalms, framed in by a promise ; according to its content it is a ' kerygma *, a ' message '." 4 Bentzen, too, seems to hold this opinion.5 Judging from the change of speaking subjects the song is, conceivably, a liturgy, 6 though, owing to its peculiarity as regards both motif and situation, it cannot be ranked with any of Gunkel's usual categories.

In hi: 13-15 we have the introduction, in the form of a promising oracle in which Yahweh assures the Servant of his exaltation. Owing already to this oracular character of the saying it is out of the question that n2H could be conditional.7 It is, no doubt, the common interjectional " lo " so often intro­ ducing oracles.8

However, the first great problem is offered by the term VOBF, translated " shall deal wisely " in R.V.9 In my opinion, the close analysis by Nyberg does not catch the decisive meaning of the word in our context any more than do preceding

1 Studien zu Deuterojesaja (Beitrdge zur Wiss. vom A. undN.T., iv. 25, pp. 55 ft., 1938.

2 Cf. the quotation from Gressmann below, p. 87, n. 1.3 Das hebr. Leichenlied, pp. 261 ff.4 Del Gamle Testamente, iii, p. 247. 6 Jesaja,ii, p. 109.6 As above taken in a purely form-literary meaning.7 Vs. Nyberg, pp. 45 f.8 Cf. xlii: 1 (H3S7 p etc.).9 Margin rendering : " prosper ". The Septuagint has awrjaei, " will

become wise " ; the Syriac version "^ok-OXiO, " will deal wisely " ; and the

Targum H^CT, " will prosper ", or more probably, " will be exalted ", " will rule ", or the like. Torrey's rather strange opinion may be mentioned. Accord­ ing to him ^"OttT is not a verb, but a nomen proprium, " the wise ", a poetic periphrasis of Israel! (The Second Isaiah, p. 415.)

76 THE JOHN RYLANDS LIBRARYinvestigations. 1 The connexion of the verb with the nomen " (e.g. in Ps. xxxii: 1) seems quite obvious. It may be true that the most common connotation of the verbal stem in the wisdom literature and related texts is " insight " in different nuances ; nevertheless, it is incontestable that it has another special mean­ ing : it refers in one way or another to the category of " enthron- ization psalms ", as is to be seen from passages like II Chron. xxx : 22, Am. v : 13, 2 and a series of Psalms, e.g. xxxii, xlv, and Ixxviii 3 to which may be added the two royal " Tammuz psalms " Ixxxviii and Ixxxix,4 both of which are called "TOtZftD. Other instances indicate a meaning of royal ruling, exercising of power with justice and righteousness, e.g. Jer. x : 21, xxiii: 5,5

x Pp. 41 fi. By a very intricate reasoning Nyberg comes to the passive- negative and somewhat surprising import of " take in chastisement " (Swedish : " undfa tuktan ").

2 Cf. Sellin, Dos ZiDolfprophetenbuch, i, pp. 239 f., 1929, who lays down that we are here concerned with the recital of an enthronement psalm, renderingKTI nsn ny "o DIT *rnn nsn Vo0»n,t " Damm verstummtHymnus in jener Zeit, denn es ist eine Unheilszeit" (p. 240, with reference to Ps. xlvii: 8 and xxx : 13). Cf., however, Isa. xli: 20, xl: 18, though here in quite another context.

3 Though commonly judged of as a " wisdom psalm " Ps. xxxii is a royal penitential psalm with " positive confession ". It is impossible in detail to prove this statement here ; observe, however, especially v. 8. One might alsoask oneself whether the combination of "^T'DttfX in v. 8 and 0*0*1 in v. 10 ispurely accidental. Ps. xlv is one of the most typical royal psalms in the Psalter, at home in the wedding ritual of the Annual Festival. As is well-known the kingis here even titled DT17X, " god ", in v. 7. Ps. Ixxviii is a cult-prophetic liturgy at " the covenant-renewal-festival " (Mowinckel), i.e. the Annual Festival. The way it closes in w. 67 ff. shows a culmination in the kingdom of David, who in v. 70 is called 'Ebed (Yahweh).

4 On Ps. Ixxxix see above, p. 56, n. 1. Ps. Ixxxviii has been characterized already by Caster in Religions, ix, 16, 1934, in a comparison with the Ras Shamra text, // AB. Cf. too, my Studies, p. 118, where I have referred to the parallel in Isa. liii: 7 and pointed to the occurrence of the substitute idea in // AB, viii: 15 ff., the lamb being the substitute for 'Al'iyan Ba'al-the king. The psalm is dealt wieth more recently by Widengren in a paper (in Swedish) in Svensk Exegetisk Arsbok, x, 66 ff., 1945, from the point of view of the royal descensus ad inferos. This motif is met with also in Ras Shamra, e.g. in /* AB, vi: 11 fi. (see Studies, pp. 119 ff.), and // D, vi: 43 ff. (ibid., pp. 138 f.).

5 In Jer. x : 21 we meet with a reference to " the Shepherds' " exercising of the royal saviour power (in the ideology there, recurs " the dispersion ", too); and in xxiii: 5 the Davidic Messiah (PI'022) to come, imparts the same authority. It is worth observing that the Targum of the passages cited, as well as of I Sam., xviii: 14 and Ps. ii: 10 has the same verb n*7*£, used here in Isa. Hi: 13, too. Cf. p. 75, n. 9.

'EBED YAHWEH SONGS 77Ps. ii : 10, 1 and xxxvi : 4. 2 Finally, in the remarkable passage Dan. xii : 3, the word is topically combined with the resurrection. For D^DtPftn are here among those who are going to rise from the dead, and the term is used synonymously with D^mn VT^, " they that turn many to righteousness ". The latter connota­ tion is close to hand in Isa. Hi : 13 too, on which the Daniel passage is possibly directly dependent. In any case, the mean­ ing of the word in most of the passages cited lies within the sphere of the royal functions to which also the aspect of suffering belongs (as in Isa. lii : 13, Ps. Ixxxviii, Ixxxix).3 Thus we have the right to assume that the contested ^DtZT in our text means either " to execute a VOttftD '*, i.e. an Annual Festival psalm, or " take the throne, the power in (re)possession " or the like, to wit, after the passion and the resurrection. Judging from the parallels in the second half of the verse, "TXfc rQJf) KtZttl D1T (cf. Isa. vi : 1) the latter seems to be decidedly preferable.

As to the term ''IDS?, " my Servant ", the reader is referred to what is said above of xlix : 2. In v. 14 D^SI, "many", recurring in lii : 15, liii : 11, 12a, c,4 is, as rightly pointed out by Volz,6 a technical term characteristic of the satisfaction doctrine.

To the expression " that his visage was so marred from that of man, and his shape from that of the sons of men " 6 a long

1 Another of the Psalter's most typical royal psalms. Observe v. 1 1 : " Scrye (Yahweh) . . ."

2 Also a royal psalm, to wit, a royal " protection psalm " ; see, provisionally, Birkeland, Die Feinde des Individuums in der israelitischen Psalmenliteratur, pp. 140 f., 1933. Observe the rubric: TH1? HlIT "HS?1?. In other cases 7%>D$n simply means " to rule " ; thus sometimes even in Prov., e.g. xvi : 23, xxi : 12.

3 In my Studies I have pointed to the double inherent aspect applied to the messianic character : the life-victory-resurrection aspect and that of humiliation- suffering-death, the latter of them especially expressive in " the ' Ebed Yahweh psalms " (p. 1 70, n. 4 ; p. 1 76, n. 4). The same two aspects appear in Ras Shamra, too, owing to " the identity " between " Tammuz " and the king. Cf. not least a passage like /// D, i : 33b ff. (parallel to 226 ff.), with its typical royal treatment of 'Aqhat who is struck on the pate, on the ear, whose blood is spilt as at a slaughter, etc. (pp. 139 f.). Cf. further the parallels quoted in the following.

4 Cf. Dan. xi : 33, xii : 3, Mark, x : 45, Rom. v : 19.*Jesaia,i'i,p.]73, 1932.6 Or, rather : " Sons of Man ", since D"TN ''IQft, enhancing the foregoing

EPX, may possibly allude to this specially royal connotation of the expression as a technical term, the primeval royal-messianic title D"7X~*p '" Son of Man ", the otherwise beautiful and gallant hero, now totally inverted during his time of suffering.

r. *

78 THE JOHN RYLANDS LIBRARYseries of parallels is offered by the Sumero-Accadian Tammuz liturgies. Tammuz is here called *' the bowed 'V " the mal­ treated " (440 : 18 f.), " the distorted " (434: 12 f.), " the one robbed of his figure's soundness " (438: 11). That is why it is also said of Tammuz in a formulary way during the time of " humiliation " : " who knows thy figure ? " (Sumenan : mu-lu ta-zu mu~un-zu, Accadian: kattuk mannu ilammad; 134 : 1, 308 : 1 ff.). 2 Further, the following parallels may de­ serve being quoted in order to illustrate the suffering of Tammuz in comparison with the Servant's " catalogue of suffering '* in our text. Tammuz is called the one ** stricken with suffering " (436 : Rs. 2), " survived by pain " (66 : 355), " smitten by agony " (92 : Vs. II, 7, 242 :3, etc.), " visited with violent agony " (146 : Vs. I, 5 f.), " man of lamentation " (Sumerian : mu-lu akkH-a, 238 : 10, etc., cf. 66 : 358, 78 : 9), " man of tears '* (mu-lu ir-ri, 48: 71 f., etc.), " the bewailed, the lamented " (440 : 24 f.), " the feeble, the annihilated " (396 : text Nies- Keiser 26 : 11), " the bowed hero, beloved of heart " (64 : 352), etc. It is said of him that he " was seized by suffering . . . broken as a reed,3 smitten . . ." (440 : 1 ff., 11), he is " doomed to destruction, struck by an evil generation " (344:32), he is called " the shepherd thrown to the ground " (428 : Vs. 14 ff., cf. 286 : Rs. 7 f., etc.), " the imprisoned, the slain " (90 : 6 ff., 108: III, 13, etc.), " the one washed over with blood " (398: II, 25), whose " face is stained with blood " (438 : 10). At the same time Tammuz is said to be seized and carried away to the underworld (Accad.: aralu, often called edinnu, " the steppe "),

1 Witzel, Analecta Or., x, 64 : 352, 1935. To this work the numbers refer in the following.

2 It must, however, be noted, that the same formula is used also of Tammuz " glorified " (e.g. 176 : 41 f., 204 : 35 f., 216 : 11), and that it alternates, seemingly, with "not seeing his interior" (Accadian : qerebshu la ate, 268: 1, etc.), i.e. penetrate his heart, his will and intention, etc.

3 It looks very probable that by analogy HD^DI "TntZT tf? flX") H2p nin^ N*? J"irO in Isa. xlii: 3a has a passive import with the Servant as the subject, as is also supported by v. 4a. It is the Servant who is " the smould­ ering wick that shall not be quenched ", etc. This has been justly seen by Burrows, p. 65, who has also pointed to the "TIT "")} in I Kings, xi: 36, etc., " the eternal lamp " symbolizing the king. Cf. with this Oesterley in Myth and Ritual, pp. 142 ff., 1933, and Johnson, in The Labyrinth, pp. 74, 80 f., 1935.

'EBED YAHWEH SONGS 79where he lies imprisoned and sleeping in the dark: Tammuz is '* the steppe man " (lu edin-na, 318 : 6 f., etc.), " set upon by the nether world " (8 : 64 ff.), the one " carried away to the place of darkness, the imprisoned " (436: 8 ff.), " with fettered hands and feet " (398 : 14 ff., cf. 30 :22, etc.), " lying in the dark " (432 : 1 ff.), " who sits in the dark, without being reached by light " (147 : II, 11), " laid in the grave alive " (82 : 24), " cap- tive in the * house of horror ' " (66:356), where he " sleeps an overwhelming sleep" (184 : Rs. 8, 190:8, etc.), but rules contemporaneously as " lord of death, lord of the shepherd's residence " (236 : 15), 1 he who is " the hero going the way with no return to the bosom of the earth, in the middle of the day to the land of the dead ". 2

These Sumero-Accadian parallels must be considered es­ pecially relevant precisely because the Ugaritic texts have now given us definite proof of the role played by " the Tammuz god " in ancient times, also among the western Semites. Re­ ferring to the detailed treatment in my Studies in Divine Kingship I content myself here with the following indications. In 1*AB v: 11 ff. etc., is described the death of 'Al'iyan Ba'al and his descending ** into the house of the prison of the earth ", as well as in vi: 8 ff. where it is said : " Ba'lu is fallen to the earth, dead is 'Al'iyan Ba'lu, perished Ba'lu, ' the Noble ' of the Earth ". 3 In the text BH ii : 47 ff. we are told that by this he " puts on the blood of his brethren ", i.e. that he fulfils his expiatory duty.4 In I*AB vi : 11 ff. (cf. / AB Sup. 1. 2 ff.) we also hear of a maltreatment of 'Al'iyan Ba'al's body, evidently rendered symbolically as an earthen figure or the like.5 In the Dan'il cycle where the Tammuz god is personified in the shape of 'Aqhat a description is given in the typical Tammuz style (/// D i : 336 ff., cf. 22b ff.) of the treatment of 'Aqhat: he is " struck on the pate, on the ear, his blood is spilt as at a slaughter ", etc.6 Finally, according to the purely cultic inter­ pretation of the Krt cycle, taken by me as a parallel of the series

1 Cf. in the royal passion psalm in Isa. xxxviii :9 ff., v. 12 ^^\ ^HX, " the shepherd's tent " !

2 Franck, Kultlieder aus dem Ixhtar'Tamuz-Kreis, p. 67, iv : I. f., 1939.3 Cf. my Studies, p. 119.4 Ibid., pp. 126 f. 5 Ibid., pp. 120 f. 6 Ibid., pp. 139 ff.

80 THE JOHN RYLANDS LIBRARYAB, 'Anat, and Ddnil, we meet with the same idea bound up with Karit, / Krt 1. 10: "Fallen is 'our Father', broken Karit . . .'V It has been pointed out already that the positive aspect is also found : *' the resurrection ", the exaltation, and the enthronement. 2

Keeping these facts in mind, we must acknowledge that every attempt at getting away from " the Tammuz interpreta­ tion " of the 'Ebed Yahweh figure, too, is bound to become a failure. The Tammuz interpretation has also recurred from time to time in the history of the 'Ebed Yahweh problem, lately with Irwin 3 and Hyatt.4 We must add, however, that the whole perspective has become completely changed. We see now that it is not a question of a superficial influence from outside, from Babylonia, but of an idea autochthonic with the western Semites, too, inherently bound up with the sacral kingship pattern in Canaan, and taken over there by Israel. Thus, the adducing of Sumero-Accadian parallels here must not be misunderstood, and by no means put on a level with the working method of the so-called pan-Babylonists (a fatality remarkably enough easily met with by a " patternist " ; also from competent scholars, who should know better). The parallels are not even intended to show a direct Accadian influence; they " merely " support, as pointed out once before, a factual internally Israelite world of thoughts with a distinctive cultic background.

We return to our text. Hf in v. 15 is a real crux inter- pretum, admittedly still unsolved. One might be tempted to suggest that the matter in question is a libation offering.5

1 Studies, pp. 149 f. Now that the impossible historicistical interpretation of the Krt text is being renewed (De Langhe, Ginsberg), I am glad to say that Pedersen in a paper read at Upsala November 2nd, 1945, proved to have modified in a conspicuous way his conception of this text, which he now calls a cult- text, bound up with the Annual Festival, even though he would still style it a " by-text " ; whereas I keep to my opinion that it forms part of the Krt version of the Annual Festival text cycles, just mentioned above.

2 See above, p. 58, esp. n. 5.3 In Smith, The Prophets and their Times, rev. ed., pp. 232 ff., 1941.4 In Journal of Bible and Rel, x, 75, 1942, with special reference to the Ugarit

parallels I*AB, ii : 12, 19 f., cf. // AB, iv: 44, where 'Al'iyan Baal is "the Servant of Mot, i.e. of Death ". Also later in JNES, iii, 79 ff., 1944.

5 Nyberg translates " offer a purification sacrifice ", but his conception of the character of the sacrifice is wholly dictated by his leprosy hypothesis.

'EBED YAHWEH SONGS 81Sacrifices and libations formed an indispensable condition for the resurrection of Tammuz. He is " the hungry, the thirsty " 1 who raises his cry for " provision ", 2 Here, too, the kings play a special role though different from that in Isa. lii : 15, as far as they are spoken of as bringing gifts (84 :20 ff.). Comparing xl: 7 Iftpl 1XT D'O^fc, as well as Job xxix: 8, we do better,

in spite of all, to take our point of departure in the parallel word DEE? in v. 14 and translate " cause astonishment " or the like. It may be that the Septuagint's Bav^darovTaL is a guess. Even a guess sometimes strikes home. The arabic etymology Iji, to " jump ", often alleged as a support, is a little suspicious. 3

DJTD D'O^ft ISDp'' V^S?, " over him kings shut their mouth ", to wit, dumbfounded because of the Servant's exaltation—for, of course, there is an antithesis between vv. 14 and 15, the latter of which must be interpreted in the positive according to the aim of the oracular presentation,4 this interpretation being by no means, in my view, " too abstract and pale ",5 but entirely evident as is seen from Ps. cvn : 42, Job v: 16, and above all xxix: 9.

With liii: 1 the corpus of the song begins which gives the central " cult word ", " the myth ", the cult myth (Hebrew: n^fctP).6 The problem of the speaking subject has been solved in different ways owing, of course, to the 'Ebed interpretation of the scholars respectively. Thus, Gressmann has declared, though on insufficient grounds, " dass man gar kein Recht hat,

1 Witzel,322:2l ff.2 16 : 183 ff., etc. Concerning 'Al'iyan Ba'Iu of Ugarit in the same position,

see my Studies, p. 112.3 Peshitto's j^t^O. " will purify ", is probably an interpretation on the

analogy of liii: 11 f.4 Thus correctly Bentzen, p. 102.5 Vs. Nyberg, p. 47. However, his interpretation is, here too, dictated by the

leprosy theory. Cf. Bentzen: "But 156 and liii: 1 rather give expression to astonishment, so that Nyberg's interpretation seems uncertain " (p. 102).

6 Bentzen objects to Nyberg: " But how can an old myth be something no one has ever heard or seen before ? " (p. 103). It may be that Bentzen has been misled through Nyberg's too mythologizing interpretation. The statement implies, however, in itself a logicistical reasoning. For the mysterious message of the ancient cult myth is, contemporaneously, always new, i.e. experienced over and over again.

6

82 THE JOHN RYLANDS LIBRARYdie Heiden fur die Redenden zu halten 'V Others are of the very opposite opinion, e.g. Torrey, Kissane, and Bentzen. Pedersen says, cautiously, that "it is difficult to say whether it is the Israelites or the other nations that appear (in Ch. 53) as witnesses to his fate and acknowledge that he suffered it for them ". 2 The truth is rather, I am inclined to think, that the Servant's own countrymen first and foremost constitute the subject speaking, but that also the 0*0*1 D'H) are included among them.

With v. 2a, pIPD ^Sn,8 *' when he grew up before Him as a tender plant ", etc., we find ourselves in a Tammuz-ideological context clearer than ever. The scion is the tree or plant of life, a symbol of the king-Tammuz, here during " the time of withering ", i.e. in the suffering aspect. This theme may now be considered so settled that we need not dwell any longer upon the subject here.4 In direct topical connexion herewith recurs in vv. 2b ff. the motif of ** the marred one ". Already from what has been said above, it may stand out quite clearly that every kind of leprosy theory is incompatible with the whole tenor of the text. From quite another point of departure an overwhelming settling of the accounts with this theory is to be found in Guillaume, from whom the following may be worthy of citing : " It is extraordinarily difficult to believe that a leprous figure could have been chosen as the ideal figure of a community wherein lepers were dreaded sources of infection, forbidden to associate with their fellows, and the object of a special section of the Law. Moreover, the Servant could not have been a leper

1 Ursprung, p. 324. Thus also Mowinckel (Del Gamle Testamente, p. 246) according to whom the speakers are the poet himself and his circle, and Waterman (JBL, Ivi, 30) : " (This view) faces insuperable difficulties ".

2 Israel, ii, p. 605.3 It should be noted that the Targum has read 7^1 a testimony of the

uncertainty of the time aspect.4 See my Studies, p. 25 etc., Topical Index s.v. " Tree (plant) of life ". The

theme has been further developed in a paper (in Swedish) in Religion och Bibel, ii, 60 ff., 1943, by Widengren who adduces additional text parallels. The oft- quoted text (lately by Nyberg, p. 65, by Witzel, pp. 228 ff.) from the edin-na series was advanced already in 1908 by Sellin (Das Rdtsel des deuterojes. Baches, p. 104). In the Ras Shamra texts, too, pF refers to the "Tammuz " sphere ; see Studies, p. 130, n. 6.

'EBED YAHWEH SONGS 83unless we assume and we have no right to assume that he developed leprosy between the time of his scourging and the plucking out of his beard, in the last poem, and his death. He could not have been touched by men if he had been a leper 'V However true it may be that S7X1 (STOl v. 4b, Ittl v. Sb) has,

or rather has developed, the special connotation of leprosy, and however closely this may possibly be shown through an incisive philogical analysis, it is also nevertheless indisputable that the word is often used of quite other kinds of pains than leprosy. Furthermore, we must admit that the description of the Servant's disease in other respects is of a quite different character (e.g. KDlfc, y?nft in v. 5 etc.). But the decisive fact is and remains the definitely inevitable " Tammuz interpretation " of the text. The body of " Tammuz ", sometimes as lately in Ras Shamra corporalized e.g. in the shape of a figure of earth, was cultically- symbolically maltreated, " ploughed ", etc., but never visited with leprosy, as also the cult-symbolic and ideological suffering of Tammuz the king is never metaphorically represented in that way. 2

1 Theology, xii, 3 f., 1926, etc.2 Cf. Studies, pp. 119 ff. Cf. also Zech. xii: 10 OpT) and Hvidberg, Graad

og Latter i del Gamle Testaments, pp. 101 f., 1938. Torrey also says : " There is not the least indication nor likelihood anywhere in the poem, that the figure of a leprous person occurred to the author " (p. 418). Cf. too, Rudolph in ZAW, xliii, 92 f., 1925, who rejects Duhm's leprosy hypothesis, inter al. in the following words : " Und zwar muss sein Leiden irgendwie zum Volksganzen eine Beziehung gehabt haben, denn bei einer sozusagen privaten Krankheit wie Aussatz ware "ttftl^tZ? "1D1?3 (v. 56) oder die Aussage, dass er mit seinem Tod fiir die Frevler eintrat (v. 126), nicht recht verstandlich ". Kissane, too, states: "There is not the slightest hint that it was leprosy" (p. 186). Cf. also Feldmann, Der Knecht Gottes, pp. Ill f., Das Buck Isaias, ii, 166. Owing ultimately to his " prime ancestor interpretation " of 'Ebed Yahweh, Nyberg has come to join company with the few adherents to the leprosy theory. " In him are concentrated the experiences of a people " (p. 75). The tacit premise is the role of leprosy in the historical life of Israel as one of its most severe scourges. The theory recurs, though not very emphatically, inter al. in Volz and Mowinckel. I beg to draw attention to the inverted commas around the word " Tammuz " above, as well as the fact that reference is made, not to Sumero-Accadian Tammuz liturgies, but to the Ras Shamra material. Since my argument here against the leprosy explanation is thus taken from west-Semitic material, I must find it rather strange that I have lately been accused by Nyberg of " pan-Babylonism in a worse form" on account of this argumentation ! I shall soon revert to the

84 THE JOHN RYLANDS LIBRARYV. 4 : WM XIH ir'pn pK, etc., " However, it was our

diseases he bore. ..." From these words on the Servant's expiatory deed through vicarious suffering is the main theme. It does not seem necessary to me to enter any closer upon this subject-matter either. We may content ourselves with a refer­ ence to the fact now manifest that the king's vicarious suffering in the New Year Festival by means of which he atones for the sins of the whole people, is one of the cardinal items of the ideology of sacral kingship all over the Ancient Near East, 1 a conception whose main foundations are the retaliation dogma, the sub­ stitute offering and the corporalization ideas. 2 Instead of ImDniM m v- 5b tne Targum reads ttmSDS, " through our

% *" T V

gathering", and Waterman Im^rO, " in (or through) hisT S V

fellowship ".3 However, the Massoretic text is no doubt to be preferred here too. In v. 6a is presupposed the metaphor of 'Ebed as the Shepherd, the ancient epithet of the sacral king as well as of Tammuz. Otherwise, too, the sphere of motifs of v. 7 is as typical as before. We meet with the lamb, known as a sacrificial substitute for " Tammuz- " the king both among east- and west-Semites (Mari, Ras Shamra).4 In the Sumero- Accadian Tammuz liturgies are repeatedly found such expressions of Tammuz as ** the lamb carried off to the steppe " (Witzel, 398: III, 5 ff.), "the lamb taken away to the underworld" (432: 12 f.), "the lamb in the power of the Nether world" (48 : 67 f., 396 : 14 ff., 398 : III, 5 f., etc.). In Israel the mostmethodological questions in another connexion. I merely wish to stress here (1) that " patternism " is not " pan-Babylonism ", and (2) that the comparative religio-historical method, rightly used within a restricted culture area, is surely a sounder and much safer one than a philological " method " based on single, more or less hazardous etymologies.

1 I content myself again with a reference to my Studies, where a survey of the material is given. The fact has been clearly seen and pointed out by Diirr (Ursprung, pp. 125 ff., 1925).

2 The last-mentioned fact has been upheld, e.g. by Eissfeldt in Expos. Times, xliv, 261 ff., 1932-1933 ; Wheeler Robinson in Beiheft zur ZAW, Ixvi, 49 ff., 1936, and lately by Hyatt in JNES, iii, 79 ff., 1944, who has nevertheless missed the conclusive point: the special role of the king. As regards his ex­ position of the prophetic ideas of the Israelite sacrificial system (pp. 82 ff.) my opinion is almost throughout an opposite one. And here again he misses the point: the role of the king.

3 JBL, Ivi, 29 f., with a reference to Job xxxiv : 8.4 Cf. my Studies, p. 118.

'EBED YAHWEH SONGS 85important form of this substitute idea is met with in the ritual of the Atonement Day, Lev. xvi, 1 depicted all through in the categories of the old royal cult. To this context, too, belongs the cultic silence motif found also in our text. It is required of the king or his substitute to observe a dignified silence at certain moments of the ritual, as it is incumbent on him to lament and cry loudly at others. 2

In v. 8a is DDtPftttl *1X$7tt a hendiadys, the meaning of which is, however, not quite sure. Nearest at hand is perhaps the translation " a judgment of violence ". 3 In that case the motif is the one well-known from " the passion " of the sacral king who is thought of as standing in a judicial procedure, in which he, though innocent, is " sentenced " on behalf of the sin of the people. The word "HIT means " his destiny ",4 and "1T3Q in v. 8& (" how he was cut off from the land of the living ") is a parallel to the ^TXl of the Eshmunazar inscription,5 evidently a technical term for the " death " of Tammuz- the king, to wit, as the cutting off of the herb of life still another link, and a strong one, in the demonstration of the ideological sphere of the text. 1&1? S7XI "'fttt tftPDft means " from those to whom my people's sin is a torment ", according to Nyberg's convincing syn­ tactic conception of the clause.6 V. 9 : " and (that) they made his grave among the wicked, among the rich when he died " does not refer to a factual historic burial at the cemetery of

1 Kissane states justly on Isa. liii: 6 f.: " The language is probably based on the ritual of the day of atonement " (p. 186). Cf. too, James, Origins of Sacrifice, p. 207, 1937. (The fact is dealt with briefly in my book Gamla Testamentet, ii, on Lev. xvi: 1 ff. and Ezk. xlv : 21 f.)

2 In a strange but typical disintegrated form this motif recurs within the sacral kingship of the Nyoros of the young-Sudanese culture. See Studies, Special Note No. 22, pp. 212 ff.

3 Interpreting from the leprosy hypothesis Nyberg translates" legal exclusion " (pp. 52 f.). Guillaume has the " By oppression and judgment " of the R.V., interpreting it: " by a deliberate miscarriage of justice he was judicially murdered " (Theology, xii, 5). Personally, I believe that the meaning is quite a different one, but owing to space limitations I must refrain from a special investigation.

4 Cf. Driver in JThSt, xxxvi, 403, 1935, starting from Accadian duru and

Arabic j)*, and referring to Ps. xxiv : 6. Thus also Nyberg, p. 43.

5 See Studies, p. 83, with the point of departure in Nyberg, ZDMG, xcii, 332, n. I, 1938.

6 ZDMG, pp. 331 ff., Svensk Exegetisk Arsbok, vii, 55 f.

86 THE JOHN RYLANDS LIBRARY" unsocial people 'V but is a new metaphor for the descending into the land of death, as will seem evident from the fact that the same thing is often said of Tammuz. Thus, e.g. Tammuz says : " my couch is the dust of the underworld ; among its murderers I am lying, among the enemies there I am kept (Witzel, p. 314 : 15 f.). It is spoken of him as lying at " the place of plunderers" (318:25), and he is said to be "im­ prisoned like a criminal " (105 : 9, etc.) and the like. Besides it is very tempting, to say the least of it, instead of Vrifo5 to read 1DD3 (thus already Ibn Ezra the reading does not imply any emendation !), *' his bdmd ", his (grave-)height, as a parallel of inp, " grave ". This reading is also preferred by Diirr with a reference to the Accadian emedu shaddshu, " ascend one's mountain ", i.e. die. 2 Since then the same idea and expression has turned up also in the Ras Shamra texts where we are told that Ba'al ascends " the Northern mountain ", in the scene of " the placing of the king-god in the mountain ". 3 In v. 10& ^nn should be taken as an intransitive hifil from the root H 1?!"!, " to appease ".4 The meaning of v. 10 is thus that Yahweh gets appeased when the Servant gives his life as an DtPK, a guilt offering. The idea of the appeasement of the god by means of sacrifices and libations is very ancient and especially typical within the Tammuz sphere, lately witnessed in the Ugaritic texts.6 And the expiatory sacrifice par preference is the king's self-sacrifice or the royal substitute offering. The sacrificial term used in our text, OtPX, " guilt offering ", is directly inter­ changeable with DXDn, " sin offering ".6

1 Cf. Nyberg, p. 76. But the rich were hardly buried there, even if they should in the mode of view of the prophets — be identical with the impious and evil-doers. However, quite another view of wealth and the rich is represented, e.g. in the Book of Job.

2 Ursprung and Ausbau, p. 150, n. 60. Cf. Albright in AJSL, xxxv, 190 f., 1918-1919.

3 Text V AB, A 21 ff. Cf. my Studies, pp. 110 f., and / AB, J : 27 ff. (Studies, pp. 121 ff.)

4 Cf. Nyberg, p. 58.5 See Studies, p. 1 12 etc., and cf. Witzel, 6 : 21 ff., 14 : 170 ff., etc.6 Cf . Dussaud, Les origines cananeennes du sacrifice Israelite, p. 126, 1921.

The connexion with Lev. xvi, where the term for the substitute bull is flNDl"!, is pointed out also by Kissane (p. 190).

'EBED YAHWEH SONGS 87With v. 105 the aspect swings over in a characteristically

abrupt way from the negative to the positive, 1 from suffering and death to resurrection and exaltation. Hence it is impossible to accept Nyberg's interpretation with SHT as the subject, inserted moreover, between two verbs. 2 As for myself, I am not aware of any difficulties in taking the 'Ebed as the subject. On the contrary, from the topical viewpoint it is no less than necessary that the Servant is the subject. It is he himself who, having performed Yahweh's will (fDn), " after the travail of his soul " 3 shall see, and see till he is satisfied, days and a numer­ ous offspring. In the Sumero-Accadian royal texts this motif recurs in standing cliches in the hymnic blessing formulas, in itself reflecting the double aspect of the victory of life over death : the individual aspect with its " eternal " life, and the collective through the countless progeny to come. Moreover, the Ras Shamra texts have again provided us with the west-Semitic evidence on this point, too. Thus 'Al'iyan Ba'al creates life before his descent into the nether world through progeny, and after death through resurrection.4 The idea is bound up also with the royal figure 'Aqhat gzr who " gives birth to a humanity " after passing through " suffering " and " death " to a new life and to whom is given " life and years ".5 Finally, the same motif is associated with Karit, too. 6 Judging from this evidence it is no doubt too narrow an interpretation to see in v. 10 in an

1 Cf. Gressmann, Ursprung, p. 326, who says of this immediate attachment without any connecting link : " Das ist die charakteristische Situation des Kultliedes ". In Gressmann's opinion, Isa. liii goes back to " ein aus den Mysterien stammendes Kultlied, das am Todestage des Gottes von den Mysten gesgungen wurde " (pp. 326 f.).

2 P. 59. Nyberg translates : " The progeny shall see, experience, that it will be given long days ".

3 Cf. with the mode of expression here, v, 18 of the royal passion psalm cxviii mentioned above : ^rU X*7 nitf?! PP TIO11 *)D\ Cf. also Ps. xxi i : 30 f.

4 Cf. Pedersen in Ada Orientalia, xviii, 6, 1939, and my Studies, p. 119, where I have drawn the parallel to the 'Ebed Yahweh figure in Isa. liii: 10 (n. 7). Already Diirr has seen that we have to do with royal ideology in Isa. liii: 10 (Ursprung und Ausbau, p. 90, n. 11), though he too, erroneously takes 17"1T as subject in (the relative clause) D"1^ "["'"WT

5 // D, vi: 38 ff., cf. 26 ff. See my Studies, p. 138.6 According to my reading and interpretation of / K 3\b ff., given in Studies,

p. 152.

THE JOHN RYLANDS LIBRARYhistoricistical way only a reference to the Servant's own corporal resurrection.1 The matter in question is a cultic-ideological reality of a far wider scope and of a very ancient date, as is also to be directly seen from the words p"ns pHT IDSnD, " by the ' knowledge ' of himself he maketh the righteous righteous " (i.e. maketh many righteous cf. Dan. xii: 3 and I En. xlvii, li). For these words must be re-interpreted something like this : by means of the cultic-mystic unity with the Saviour every participant shares in the realized salvation. And thus the universality of the cultic drama is established by these words.

At the same time they are the last words of the corpus of the song, while v. lie opens the conclusion. In its first words (D*^"!1? "nD$7, a nominal clause) Yahweh himself repeats and confirms what is just said : " My Servant is for (the benefit of) the many, whose iniquities he beareth ". In v. \2a comes the succinct terminating oracle promise, 2 typically enough followed by a repetition of the Servant's vicarious contribution, he who

1 Cf. Sellin, p. 2114 and Mowinckel, Del Gamle Testamente, p. 249, where he says : " This can according to the context only imply the non-conviction verdict of the deed: that the Servant is resurrected to a new earthly life that is the contents of the Old Testament belief in resurrection. It is, thus, here the question merely of a special wonder on behalf of the Servant; a general resurrection belief is not postulated on the contrary." As will be seen already from what is said above, my opinion on this point differs markedly from that of Mowinckel. I should like to note that it is the doctrine of the Persian origin of the resurrection belief (Bousset, von Gall, Bertholet, etc.) that has caused the false dating of the idea, down in the Persian era or later. But the roots of the idea are no doubt to be found in autochthonous cult usages, bound up with the dying and rising god, and with analogies from vegetable life. (Thus, scholars like Kohut, Spiess, Grobler, Schwally, Lagrange, von Baudissin, Maynard, Notscher, have, in my opinion, beeo more or less on the right track. Cf. especially the latter's Altorien- talixher taid alttestamentlicher Auferstehungsglaube, 1926, and further Ebeling, Tod und Leben, 1931.) Thanks to the evidence from Ras Shamra referred to above combined with the burial customs (cf. Dussaud in RHR, cv, 282 ff., 1932 ; Caster in Iraq, vi, 116 ff., 1939 ; Sukenik in Memorial Lagrange, pp. 59 ff., 1940) we must admit that the resurrection idea is an ancient, aboriginal Canaanite conception (cf. provisionally, in the Old Testament especially Hos. vi: 1 f.), even if it has not here the same individualistic character as later on, in Hellenistic and modern times. No clear boundary line exists on this stadium, between death, grave existence, and resurrection.

2 The apprehension of its restricted scope is almost the only thing acceptable in Sellin's whole paper in ZAW, Iv, 210 ff.

'EBED YAHWEH SONGS 89exhausted l his soul in death and suffered himself to be

reckoned 2 among sinners, bearing the sin of many, and inter­ ceded for the sinner ".

The passage liv : 1 ff. forms a hymnic conclusion of the 'Ebed Yahweh song, as is so often the case with the tradition unities within a complex, also in the prophetic texts of such a clear liturgical character as " Deutero- Isaiah ", attached accord­ ing to the association word principle : D^m in v. 16. 3 Here the consequences of the Servant's resurrection and exaltation are depicted : the restoration of Zion and the erection of the new Jerusalem on the basis of the Davidic covenant,4 fulfilled irj 'Ebed Yahweh. Typical is the occurrence of a piece of pro­ phetic parenesis (Iv : 6 ff.) of *' Proto-Isaian " type a pheno­ menon that is by no means surprising from a traditio-historical point of view before the last conclusive promise and the hymnic section that in an unaffected way ends the " Deutero- Isaian " collection of traditions.

Unfortunately, it is impossible for me to enter upon the problem of the relations to the " Tnto-Isaian " traditions and the possible occurrence of " 'Ebed Yahweh songs " within these.5

VIIIn conclusion, however, an attempt may be made to sum up

in a few words the consequences which are to be drawn, in my opinion, from the preceding investigation.

In what concerns the traditio-historical aspect of the problem, it must be established that the treatment from this point of view directly occasions a stronger stressing of the unity and primary affinity, a result that is strongly corroborated by the purely

1 On mi?!! see Pedersen, Israel, i, p. 180.2 H2D1 is a tolerative nif'al.3 The primary connexion between the 'Ebed Yahweh song and liv : 1 ff., is

justly and strongly stressed also by Bentzen (p. 109 vs. Mowinckel).4 Already of Ch. liv Kissane says : " Although the name of David is not

mentioned, there are some echoes of the promises made to him (3a-b, cf., xi, 10 ff. ; 10, cf. 2 Sam. vii, 15-16 ; Ps. Ixxxix, 28 ff. ; 13 f., cf. 2 Sam., vii, 10-1 1), and it is fairly obvious that in the prophet's mind the restoration of Sion is the return of the glories of -the kingdom of David " (p. 192).

5 Cf. concerning Isa. Ixi : 1-3, Cannon in ZAW, xlvii, 284 ff., 1929.

90 THE JOHN RYLANDS LIBRARYform-literary point of view. An indirect but necessary corollary is the originality of the messianic sayings in the prophetic texts on the whole. And, hence, the messianic l interpretation of the 'Ebed Yahweh songs in " Deutero-Isaiah " is in principle suggested as the most natural one.

Furthermore, the religio-historical elucidation along the lines of the sacral kingship ideology makes this messianic interpreta­ tion stand as the only possible one, as I opine, in so evident a manner that it seems indeed a riddle that Protestant scholars with single splendid exceptions like Rowley in his above-men­ tioned work have been able so completely to overlook its necessity. Obviously, the Catholic theologians who almost without exception maintain the messianic interpretation (e.g. Feldmann, Fischer, Kissane) have been less handicapped, as they join directly the old traditional Christian interpretation, founded in its turn no doubt on a primary tradition and, thus, representing a sound and just line of interpretation. For it should not be forgotten, as has so often been done within modern literary critical scholarship, that one is always on safer ground with tradition than against it provided of course that tradition is compatible with a purely scientific view. However, the Christian messianic interpretation represents an interpretation of faith, whereas from a strictly scientific viewpoint 'Ebed Yahweh can, of course, not be considered a direct prediction of Jesus Christ. Yet, it must be stated that the former is in line with the religio-historical perspective of so imposing an age,

1 I use here, as in my Studies, the term " messianic " not with the import of a belief directed towards an " eschatological " future, but in the wider connotation of " elaborate royal ideology ", of course implying in itself also the idea of the king as " saviour", STtZDft. This saviour belief can be directed towards an actual contemporary ruler, but also towards a " Messiah " waited for in a near or remote future, the boundary lines naturally enough being most fluid in this respect. Obviously, 'Ebed Yahweh as the Messiah has a future aspect attached to him. Nevertheless, is it a misuse of words, here as elsewhere, to put the equality sign between messianism and eschatology; needless to say, any attempt at distinguishing between a " cultic Messiah " and an " eschatological Messiah " is doomed to failure, owing to the genesis of the eschatology out of the cult, as shown not least by Mowmckel himself (against whom these words are directed) in his Psalmenstudien ii, and especially, in Jesaja-Disiplene, pp. 110 ff. At the bottom of such an endeavour lies, conceivably, a judgment of faith and value that seems alien, in any case, to a cult historian.

'EBED YAHWEH SONGS 91revealed through the elucidation along the lines of sacral king­ ship.

As regards the peculiarity of the Israelite messianic idea, the elaboration of which was said above to be the final aim of the exegesis, it must be stated that after we have recognized how much of it is really in common with messianic belief in the other Near Eastern religions this distinctiveness is to be found on the one hand in the strength with which messianism has been developed in Israel to a dominating position, and on the other in the way in which this originally directly and ex­ clusively cult-bound world of ideas has been given a consistently historic and national import thanks to the indissoluble connexion with the Davidic dynasty, the Davidic messianic line representing the central religious motif running through the whole historical life of Israel ever since its first appearance on Canaanite soil.1

The distinctiveness of the ** Deutero-Isaian" shape of messianism, corporalized in the 'Ebed Yahweh figure, lies in its turn in the strong emphasizing of the suffering aspect, an aspect that is, too, as we have seen, from the very outset a legiti­ mate and integral item of the messianic world of thinking, belief, and cult, the traces of which are to be found also elsewhere in the Old Testament texts, partly more genuine and original than here.

The first ancestor or " primeval man " idea on the other hand, is contained as an inherent motif in the royal ideology, 2 a fact

1 This dominating role of messianism in the life of Israel is rightly emphasized, e.g. by Kaufmann in ZAW, xlviii, 23 ff. f 1930, and Journet, Destinies dIsrael, pp. 50 ff., 1945.

2 Cf. with this Murmelstein in WZKM, xxxv, 242 ff., 1928; xxxvi, 51 ff., 1929. To me it seems clear that from the root of sacral kingship spring two, or rather, three, main ideological lines, to wit: (1) the " positive ", more or less purely national, messianic line of thought, being at the same time, not least in Israel, the most common one. (2) The " negative " (at the same time the more " esoteric ") aspect of the sacral king, in whom " the suffering " is also primary and inherent because of its cultic background. (See my Studies, p. 170, n. 4.) The ideological consequences of this negative aspect are drawn out on the one hand in the 'Ebed Yahweh figure, and on the other in the idea of " the Son of Man ". In the latter the most important new feature is the eschatological and transcendental element. (3) The " primeval man " idea (on such stages of culture where sacral kingship is non-existent, represented to a certain degree by the " prime ancestor " figure), the most typical trait of which is, in later times, its gnosticization.

92 THE JOHN RYLANDS LIBRARYthat does not imply that it is of any special interest with regard to the 'Ebed Yahweh figure. So much the less can it serve as a foundation of the interpretation of the 'Ebed whose typical pro­ blems it does not solve at all. 1 Still less does a collective reading into the texts of the prophetic class or the like belong here. 2 Nor is there any reason for assuming direct influences from in­ dividual prophets. In any case is it impossible to state such an influence by means of any criteria in the texts. 3 Finally, in what concerns the linking up of the 'Ebed Yahweh ideology with the person of Cyrus, it is undeniable, as stated above, that such a connexion is at hand in certain sections. But it does by no means play a very great role. On the contrary, the application to Cyrus remains a by-motif, and must not obscure the only fundamental conception : 'Ebed Yahweh the Messiah. And above all, this acknowledgment of the application of the ideology to Cyrus must not lead to a layer interpretation of the texts, with the illusory view to constructing an " evolution " in the conception of the 'Ebed figure for which in reality all criteria and possibilities are lacking.4

Lastly, I want to stress that it is self-evident to me that the " Deutero-Isaian " conception of Messiah-'Ebed Yahweh has

1 As is clearly to be seen from Nyberg's attempt at solving the problem of the 'Ebed figure along this line in his paper in Svensk Exegetisk Arsbok, x, 1942. And naturally enough, the cultural conditions for this solution are not at hand here. (Cf. the preceding note.)

2 The second source of the Servant idea according to Hyatt (pp. 81 ff.), and a strong by-motif also in Nyberg (pp. 79 ff.). From this presupposition Hyatt, too, misinterprets, e.g. "TX/ft, "the Messenger", in xlii: 19, xliv : 26, "the mouth " (p. 82), and " the tongue " motif in xlix : 2, 1 : 4, as well as the miJV imparting in xln : 4.

3 Again, both Nyberg and Hyatt reckon with such influences, especially from Jeremiah (pp. 80 and 82, respectively).

4 The latest work on " Deutero- Isaiah ", S. Smith, Isaiah, Chs. xl-lt) : Literary Criticism and History (Schweich Lectures, 1940), 1944, is not yet available tome. Judging from Rowley's review in JThSt, xlvi, 215 ff., 1945, it is, however, of a rather strongly histoncizing character, which causes the following sound reservation on the part of Rowley : " The real difficulty about the application of the principle is that the allusions to contemporary history are mostly so in­ definite and lacking in precision that the details of history have to be brought to them, rather than found in them " (p. 215). It should also be noted, however, that Smith (according to Rowley) interprets the 'Ebed Yahweh songs " strictly in relation to their immediate context " (p. 216).

'EBED YAHWEH SONGS 93a concrete foundation in a distinct circle of pious people. This is a matter of course already from the traditio-historical point of view, and I have pointed to it in other connexions. It is, further, quite clear also from the emphasis laid here by me so strongly on the fact that 'Ebed Yahweh is none else than the Davidic Messiah himself. This fact is in reality so decisive that it is neither necessary nor possible to indicate more strongly the importance of the foundation in real life that supports the 'Ebed Yahweh messianism, a form of the most central line of faith throughout the history of Israel. 1 To stress the fact that this Messiah is pictured throughout in the ancient categories of the sacral kingship ideology out of which the messianic idea itself has grown, does then, of course, by no means imply " a volatiliza­ tion of the great religious experiences into cultic schemata ". 2 It is quite as erroneous to play off form against contents as it is to mix them up.

1 In a comment on the Swedish paper that lies behind this one, Nyberg has asserted that I have denied this foundation in real life. This is, of course, by no means the fact. On the contrary it would seem very questionable how Nyberg's own, newly-repeated interpretation of 'Ebed Yahweh as "a pro­ phetic collective " or " Isaiah as a collective figure " could imply a stronger and firmer "foundation in real life" than the interpretation of the 'Ebed as the Davidic Messiah. When Nyberg states that the circle within the people, that is the bearer of the 'Ebed Yahweh ideology, " cannot have had anything to do with the king for there was no king then, the house of David being over­ thrown and the temple ruined ", this statement must be characterized as in the teeth of the historical evidence down to the time of our Lord. Should the facts mentioned be a hindrance to the belief in the Messiah and the expectations for him ? That much dependent upon the binding up with an historical human being is not an idea, that it dies immediately together with the actual temporary object, I suppose ? To me a statement like this is really unwarranted historicism. Furthermore, the house of David was not dead. It may be enough to point to the role of Zerubbabel in the immediately following years. Cf. also Matt, xxii : 42 ff., etc.

2 Quoted from the comment by Nyberg just mentioned.

7 *

ST. MARK VIII. 33 : A MISTRANSLATION FROM THE ARAMAIC?

BY THE REV. F. BUSSBY, M.B.E., M.A.,

THE THEOLOGICAL COLLEGE, OXFORD.

I n previous issues of this BULLETIN * we have put forward evidence which goes some way to suggesting an Aramaic back­

ground to St. Mark. We believe that further evidence is avail­ able from the well known saying, " Get thee behind me, Satan " (St. Mk. viii. 33).

At first sight the word Barava^ might appear to be a trans­ literation of the Hebrew pfe, or to be dependent upon the LXX. When we turn to the LXX, however, we find that ]Bfe is usually translated as Sia/SoXo?,2 and very occasionally transliterated as Oardv. 3 It is not until the end of the second century B.C. when Ecclesiasticus is being rendered into Greek that we find the form OaTavas.* By this time we know that Aramaic was making itself felt in the Greek translation of the Scriptures.6

In St. Mark it is always the transliteration of the Aramaic form of the name which is found. And that it prevailed seems likely from its occurrence in Greek in the Paris Magical Papyrus as tfaSai'as, c. 300 A.D.6

If one word in the command of Jesus comes from the Aramaic, it is possible that all his words were originally in that language. First we may note that the saying is not only used to Peter but also, in Q., to Satan himself.7 In this last passage the Sinaitic

1 April 1937, October 1946.2 1 Chron. xxi. 1, Job. i. 6 and throughout the book; Ps. cviii. (cix.), 6 and

throughout Zechanah.3 1 Kings xi. 14, 23.4 c. xxii.27.5 Swete, Introduction to the O.T. in Greek, p. 319, n. 3 ; Thackeray, Grammar

oj the O.T. in Greek, p. 28."Milligan, Greek Papyri, p. 113; Deissmann, Light from the Ancient East,

p. 250.7 St. Matthew iv. 10.

94

MISTRANSLATION FROM THE ARAMAIC 95Syriac renders ^.;K^a_a.VVj, i.e. " Get thee behind thee ". This is a normal Syriac idiom, found elsewhere in the New Testament l meaning to withdraw or retire.

We suggest therefore that this idiom was misunderstood by the Greek translator. He should have rendered literally oTricra) croat. And, indeed, in Codex Bezae, this is found in Matthew iv. 10. It should be read here also.

Jesus urged Peter not to stand behind him but to withdraw : he uttered the same command when confronted by Satan at His Temptation.

1 Professor T. W. Manson kindly draws my attention to this in Merx : Evangelien nach ihrem Altesten Be^camten Texte, ad loc. The idiom may be found in the Sinaitic Syriac of St. Mt. xxiv. 18 and St. Mk. xiii. 16.